Synthetic biology of hypoxia.

Synthetic biology can greatly aid the investigation of fundamental regulatory mechanisms and enable their direct deployment in the host organisms of choice. In the field of plant hypoxia physiology, a synthetic biology approach has recently been exploited to infer general properties of the plant oxygen sensing mechanism, by expression of plant-specific components in yeast. Moreover, genetic sensors have been devised to report cellular oxygen levels or physiological parameters associated with hypoxia, and orthogonal switches have been introduced in plants to trigger oxygen-specific responses. Upcoming applications are expected, such as genetic tailoring of oxygen-responsive traits, engineering of plant hypoxic metabolism and oxygen delivery to hypoxic tissues, and expansion of the repertoire of genetically encoded oxygen sensors.