In our previous work (Tsao et al., Metabolic Engineering, 12(3), 291-297, 2010), we found the lsr promoter was a bit weak and decided to express T7 polymerase as an amplifier of the original AI-2 initiated gene expression. It was much better than the lsr promoter alone. I wonder if you'd quantified the expression level of your system as a fraction of the total protein? It was hard to follow if your efforts were much better than an IPTG-inducible promoter. For example, what was the promoter that drove your T7 polymerase? Based on your works, would it be reasonable to conclude that lsr promoter is as strong as or even stronger than T7 promoter?

Thanks,

Dr. Chen-Yu Tsao