RESUMO
The inevitable transition from petrochemical production processes to renewable alternatives has sparked the emergence of biofoundries in recent years. Manual engineering of microbes will not be sufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand for novel producer strains. Here we describe the AutoBioTech platform, a fully automated laboratory system with 14 devices to perform operations for strain construction without human interaction. Using modular workflows, this platform enables automated transformations of Escherichia coli with plasmids assembled via modular cloning. A CRISPR/Cas9 toolbox compatible with existing modular cloning frameworks allows automated and flexible genome editing of E. coli. In addition, novel workflows have been established for the fully automated transformation of the Gram-positive model organism Corynebacterium glutamicum by conjugation and electroporation, with the latter proving to be the more robust technique. Overall, the AutoBioTech platform excels at versatility due to the modularity of workflows and seamless transitions between modules. This will accelerate strain engineering of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.
RESUMO
We present an ultrasensitive absorption spectrometer based on a 30 Hz/s stability, sub-kHz line width laser source coupled to a high-stability cavity-ring-down-spectroscopy setup. It provides direct and precise measurements of the isotopic ratios δ17O and δ18O in CO2. We demonstrate the first optical absorption measurements of 17O anomalies in CO2 with a precision better than 10 ppm, matching the requirements for paleo-environmental applications. This illustrates how optical absorption methods have become a competitive alternative to state-of-the-art isotopic ratio mass spectrometry techniques.
