Synthetic Cassettes for pH-Mediated Sensing, Counting, and Containment

Summary As pH is fundamental to all biological processes, pH-responsive bacterial genetic circuits enable precise sensing in any environment. Where the unintentional release of engineered bacteria poses a concern, coupling pH sensing to the expression of a toxin creates an effective bacterial containment system. Here, we present a pH-sensitive kill switch (acidic termination of replicating population [acidTRP]), based on the Escherichia coli asr promoter, with a survival ratio of