Table 4 Methods to engineer natural and artificial selection.

Increase design-type fitness

Evolution for fitness after design phase

–

Adaptive evolution of recoded E. coli⁷⁷, Adaptive evolution of refactored phage genome⁷⁸

Reduce metabolic burden

–

Modelling ribosome allocation to reduce burden¹²⁵, Characterising burden of genetic parts¹²⁶

Dynamic control of burden

–

Burden-driven feedback control in E. coli⁶⁵

Reduce toxicity

–

mRNA toxicity¹²⁷

Decrease neighbouring fitness

Minimised chassis organism

–

Pseudomonas 2.0⁸⁰

Correlate fitness and utility

Couple function to reproduction

Couple function to reproduction

Phage-assisted continuous evolution¹⁰, Compartmentalized partnered replication¹²⁸

Couple function to survival

Couple function to reproduction

Toxin/antitoxin systems⁸¹

Artificial selection pressure

Artificial selection pressure

FACS screening¹²⁹, Ribosome display¹⁰⁹, Phage display¹³⁰