Automation of Synthetic Biology Processes at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Descriptions

The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology performs synthetic biology processes at high throughput. Examples are the integration of large DNA fragments into genomes of microorganisms, the extraction of DNA and the characterisation of a large number of genetic mutants in different growth conditions. Experimental steps involved include the picking of colonies, setting up polymerase chain reactions (PCR), measuring optical density and fluorescence of liquid cultures, stamping liquid cultures onto solid agar media, imaging culture growth on solid agar and extracting plasmid DNA. Currently some of the processes are limited by a lack of automation, an example being the picking of colonies. In other cases, automation would enable processes, which have previously been inaccessible, such as:1) the generation of very large mutant gene libraries by parallel assembly;2) accelerated engineering of genomes; and3) high density screening of directed evolution experiments, which will decrease the scale of consumption of expensive media components. Specifically, the following processes are required to be automated:1) Colony PCR set-up.2) DNA extraction.3) Spotting of liquid bacterial cultures onto solid agar plates.4) Dilution of liquid bacterial cultures.5) Heat shock transformation.The sourcing documents specify technology, which permits the automation of these tasks. They will describe the requirements towards a robotic system capable of automating these tasks along with detailed descriptions of the processes.