TY - JOUR
T1 - In situ characterisation and manipulation of biological systems with Chi.Bio
AU - Steel, Harrison
AU - Habgood, Robert
AU - Kelly, Ciarán
AU - Papachristodoulou, Antonis
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was entirely funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project EP/M002454/1 (https:// epsrc.ukri.org/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2020 Steel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/7/30
Y1 - 2020/7/30
N2 - The precision and repeatability of in vivo biological studies is predicated upon methods for isolating a targeted subsystem from external sources of noise and variability. However, in many experimental frameworks, this is made challenging by nonstatic environments during host cell growth, as well as variability introduced by manual sampling and measurement protocols. To address these challenges, we developed Chi.Bio, a parallelised open-source platform that represents a new experimental paradigm in which all measurement and control actions can be applied to a bulk culture in situ. In addition to continuous-culturing capabilities, it incorporates tunable light outputs, spectrometry, and advanced automation features. We demonstrate its application to studies of cell growth and biofilm formation, automated in silico control of optogenetic systems, and readout of multiple orthogonal fluorescent proteins in situ. By integrating precise measurement and actuation hardware into a single low-cost platform, Chi.Bio facilitates novel experimental methods for synthetic, systems, and evolutionary biology and broadens access to cutting-edge research capabilities.
AB - The precision and repeatability of in vivo biological studies is predicated upon methods for isolating a targeted subsystem from external sources of noise and variability. However, in many experimental frameworks, this is made challenging by nonstatic environments during host cell growth, as well as variability introduced by manual sampling and measurement protocols. To address these challenges, we developed Chi.Bio, a parallelised open-source platform that represents a new experimental paradigm in which all measurement and control actions can be applied to a bulk culture in situ. In addition to continuous-culturing capabilities, it incorporates tunable light outputs, spectrometry, and advanced automation features. We demonstrate its application to studies of cell growth and biofilm formation, automated in silico control of optogenetic systems, and readout of multiple orthogonal fluorescent proteins in situ. By integrating precise measurement and actuation hardware into a single low-cost platform, Chi.Bio facilitates novel experimental methods for synthetic, systems, and evolutionary biology and broadens access to cutting-edge research capabilities.
KW - Automation
KW - Biofilms
KW - Bioreactors
KW - Cell Proliferation
KW - Computer Simulation
KW - Culture Techniques/instrumentation
KW - Optogenetics/instrumentation
KW - Software
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85089406222
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000794
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000794
M3 - Article
C2 - 32730242
SN - 1544-9173
VL - 18
SP - e3000794
JO - PLoS Biology
JF - PLoS Biology
IS - 7
M1 - A24
ER -