Background: Bacterial cell lysis is a widely studied mechanism that can be achieved through the intracellular\r\nexpression of phage native lytic proteins. This mechanism can be exploited for programmed cell death and for\r\ngentle cell disruption to release recombinant proteins when in vivo secretion is not feasible. Several genetic parts\r\nfor cell lysis have been developed and their quantitative characterization is an essential step to enable the\r\nengineering of synthetic lytic systems with predictable behavior.\r\nResults: Here, a BioBrickââ??¢ lysis device present in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts has been quantitatively\r\ncharacterized. Its activity has been measured in E. coli by assembling the device under the control of a well\r\ncharacterized N-3-oxohexanoyl-L-homoserine lactone (HSL) -inducible promoter and the transfer function, lysis\r\ndynamics, protein release capability and genotypic and phenotypic stability of the device have been evaluated.\r\nFinally, its modularity was tested by assembling the device to a different inducible promoter, which can be\r\ntriggered by heat induction.\r\nConclusions: The studied device is suitable for recombinant protein release as 96% of the total amount of the\r\nintracellular proteins was successfully released into the medium. Furthermore, it has been shown that the device\r\ncan be assembled to different input devices to trigger cell lysis in response to a user-defined signal. For this\r\nreason, this lysis device can be a useful tool for the rational design and construction of complex synthetic\r\nbiological systems composed by biological parts with known and well characterized function. Conversely, the onset\r\nof mutants makes this device unsuitable for the programmed cell death of a bacterial population.
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