Laboratory evolution of synthetic electron transport system variants reveals a larger metabolic respiratory system and its plasticity

We generated four strains of Escherichia coli K12 MG1655 with distinct proton motive force generation potential and performed the adaptive laboratory evolution of these strains to study how the system adapts to the loss of alternate electron transfer pathways of the Electron Transport System. RNA-Seq was performed to examine the underlying transcriptional rewiring. Growth of E. coli was performed with biological duplicates. Total RNA was extracted from mid-log phase culture for RNA-Seq library preparation.