After interstellar migration, the species will inevitably need to adapt to local conditions, which we cannot fully simulate on Earth, so we first designed to deomnstrate that directed evolution can force bacteria to adapt cultivation conditions. After visiting Bluepha as we mentioned in human practice, we decided to provide a continuous directional evolutionary device for rapid adaptation of the species. This will be more efficient with higher throughput.
Design of our hardware
Here we take the example of Escherichia coli adapting to chlorite and in practice we can switch to something else and in the left bottle, we have LB with a high concentration of chlorite, and in the middle bottle, we have LB with no chlorite growing E. coli. The process is done by a magnetic stirrer driven by a magnetic stirrer . The bottle on the far right is used to collect the waste and the two peristaltic pumps, one pumps LB with a high concentration of chlorite into the middle bottle, and another pumps liquid culture in the middle bottle into the waste at the same time. The two peristaltic pumps are at the same power.
The final effect is that LB of cultured Escherichia coli contains high chlorite over time, that is, E. coli is constantly subjected to higher concentrations of chlorite stress, and finally can evolve a strain that is tolerant to chlorite.
Build of our hardware
We successfully built this hardware and it was able to exchange liquids in three bottles, It shows that our concept is successful.
Overview of continuous directed evolution system
Continuous directed evolution system with light incubator
