Figure 5.

Creation of colored E. coli by SYMBIOSIS. (A) Workflow for the preparation of colored E. coli cells and colorimetry. Each E. coli sample is collected in a 1.5 ml centrifuge tube from 3 ml overnight culture and matched with the color chart. When the cell color matches the standard color, the image is taken in a mini photo studio (Supplementary Figure S19) and further processed to convert the real cell color to a digital RGB color. (B) Six basic colors of red (R), yellow (Y), blue (B), orange (O), purple (P) and green (G) are generated with six chromoproteins (pFB90–pFB95, Supplementary Table S5), respectively. They are used for double or triple combinations to create colored E. coli cells. (C) Representative colored E. coli cells spanning the color gradient. All samples are repeated by three biological replicates with similar results.