TY - JOUR T1 - Design Space Exploration of the Violacein Pathway in <em>Escherichia coli</em> Based Cell-Free System JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/027656 SP - 027656 AU - Phuc H.B. Nguyen AU - Yong Y. Wu AU - Shaobin Guo AU - Richard M. Murray Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/26/027656.abstract N2 - In this study, an Escherichia coli (E. coli) based transcription translation cell-free system (TX-TL) was employed to sample various enzyme expression levels of the violacein pathway. The pathway was successfully reconstructed in TX-TL. Its variation produced different metabolites as evident from the extracts’ assorted colors. Analysis of the violacein product via UV-Vis absorption and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) detected 68 ng of violacein per μl reaction volume. Significant buildup of prodeoxyviolacein intermediate was also detected in the equimolar TX-TL reaction. Finally, design space exploration experiments suggested an improvement in violacein production at high VioC and VioD DNA concentrations. ER -