A group of scientists at @RiceUniversity & @BerkeleyLab that love making organisms sense things and build stuff. Students run this account.
Houston, TX
Joined May 2021
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Check out our new paper in @NatureComms on transforming conventional glucometer into a point-of-care biosensor for cancer therapeutics!
This work was led by Dr. Rong Cai and @BiochemAndChill in collaboration with the Verduzco lab @RafRice @RvindrSaxena
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
In conclusion, we have detailed design principles that greatly improve TFP display, increasing cargo size by over 2.5x while maintaining the bulk of TFP assembly. This method is fully generalizable to other TFP, allowing us to build display systems in all sorts of new species!
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
Lastly, we tested this best performing strain in a living material by patterning it into our previously described BUD-ELM! We saw a 4-fold increase in Synechocystis loading, fueled by covalent binding into the material. They also turned the materials a nice pretty green!
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
We next confirmed SpyCatcher003 reactivity in those sites! We observed covalent binding to SpyTag003-sfGFP on the cell surface manifesting as distinct puncta, with one strain reaching up to 1.7 fold higher fluorescence
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
Sedimentation is an excellent proxy for TFP assembly, and we saw that 2/3 of our predicted sites retained close to wild-type sedimentation, even while displaying full length SpyCatcher003! We also confirmed proper display in those 2 best sites by western blot.
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
With the end goal of SpyCatcher display, we designed multiple cassettes to co-express PilA1-SpyCatcher fusions with PilA1, varying insertion site, expression level, and SpyCatcher MW (both full length and truncated variants). We tested 16 constructs at 4 sites, 3 predicted viable
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
As many TFP structures have not been solved, we took a rational approach, where we generated the monomer for the major pilin PilA1 from Synechocystis, and built an analysis pipeline to screen for non-interfacial, solvent accessible, and flexible regions for domain insertion
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
TFP assemble from thousands of pilin monomers, which assemble through their long N-terminal a-helices to form strong fibers! Previous work has shown that TFP can C-terminally display small affibodies, but at the cost of disrupting TFP assembly. We set out to fix that:
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
This work constitutes the bulk of my PhD Thesis, and I'm excited to finally be able to share it! Thank you to my Co-authors and @AjoFranklinLab for helping me get this out.
Let me walk you through it:
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
🚨New Preprint!🚨 Type IV Pili (TFP) are the most common bacterial surface structures, making them promising for display across diverse species. Here we rationally design TFP-mediated display, applying it to the cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC 6803! 🧵
doi.org/rbc8
Our brilliant graduate students, @EstherJ61579596 and Robyn, were celebrated at the Take the Cake Ceremony for winning competitive external fellowships!
Esther is an awardee of the NSF INTERN program and Robyn won the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Huge congratulations! 🎉
Please RT! Dr. Caroline Ajo-Franklin’s at Rice University is looking to hire a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the field of bioelectrochemical sensing. Apply here:
emdz.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/…
Please RT! Dr. Caroline Ajo-Franklin’s lab at Rice University is looking to hire a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the field of Engineered Living Materials. Apply here:
emdz.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/…
Read our new Review Article on @natrevbioeng entitled “Microbial bioelectronic sensors for environmental monitoring” by @SiliangLi3, Xinyuan Zuo, Matt Carpenter, in collaboration with the @RafRice Lab!
Glad to share our review article on @natrevbioeng on how to engineer microbial biosensors that generate electrical outputs⚡. Importantly, we propose interdisciplinary approaches to transform these bioelectronic sensors into the field. 1/11
nature.com/articles/s44222-0…
This work provides an interdisciplinary framework on how to engineer field-deployable bioelectronic sensors.
nature.com/articles/s44222-0…
Ajo-Franklin Lab retweeted
Microbial bioelectronic sensors can monitor chemical pollution in the environment. In their new Review, Caroline Ajo-Franklin et al discuss how these sensors can be engineered to translate them from the lab to the field @RiceUniversity
go.nature.com/4eiJ8xW
We’re pleased to share the perspective article arising from the 2023 Engineered Living Materials Workshop! Entitled“Unlocking the societal potential of engineered living materials,” this work shares insights for moving the field of ELMs forward.
cell.com/matter/fulltext/S25…
Congratulations to @EstherJ61579596 for being awarded the NSF INTERN grant. This grant enables Esther to work at Solugen. The CAF lab is very supportive of our students taking on career development opportunities and are excited to hear what Esther learns! shorturl.at/NYq0g
Dr. Rong Cai and Dr. Caroline Ajo-Franklin are guest editing a special issue of @Sensors_MDPI entitled Point-of-Care Biosensors: Design and Applications. Topics include molecular sensing machinery, detection methods, and integration of both into miniature or wearable devices.
The deadline for submission is December 25, 2024 and you can find out details here!
mdpi.com/journal/sensors/spe…
