Vitamins as tools in synthetic biology
Vitamins are essential for cellular metabolism and required in small quantities across all domains of life to assist enzymes in conducting complex biochemical reactions. This talk explores two complementary approaches of using vitamins as tools for engineering cellular metabolism and assembling synthetic microbial communities: creating noncanonical coenzymes to probe and manipulate metabolism, and using vitamin exchange to establish interactions between microbes.
Coenzymes such as flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) support distinct biochemical reactions but share an adenine moiety derived from ATP. We investigate nucleotide selectivity in FAD and SAM biosynthesis in Escherichia coli and generate analogues containing alternative nucleobases. These noncanonical coenzymes provide a foundation for investigating how coenzyme structure shapes cellular function and for developing tools for synthetic biology and biotechnology.
Vitamin biosynthesis also provides a framework for engineering microbial interdependence. We construct synthetic microbial co-cultures that rely on the exchange of intermediates in vitamin B1 and B6 biosynthesis. These systems reveal how intermediate production and exchange support vitamin synthesis, shape community dynamics, and enable stable co-cultures. Together, our studies connect molecular mechanisms with community behaviour, establishing vitamins and their biosynthetic pathways as tools for engineering metabolism within cells and interactions between microbes.
Short bio
Amrita Hazra completed her bachelors and masters degrees in chemistry at Jadavpur University, Calcutta and at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, respectively. She obtained a Ph.D. at Cornell University in chemical biology with Tadhg Begley in 2010, followed by a postdoctoral stint in microbiology at the University of California, Berkeley with Michiko Taga. She joined IISER Pune in December 2015 as an assistant professor jointly in the departments of chemistry and biology and is currently an associate professor. She is on sabbatical for a year starting Aug 2026, and is a visiting researcher at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the National Center of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, India during this period. Her professional interests span enzymology and microbiology, and in her free time, she pursues reading, hiking, millets, and fermentation.
Laboratory of the speaker
Departments of Chemistry and Biology, India Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune
Invited by
ChemSyBio team
