Title |
Synchronous long-term oscillations in a synthetic gene circuit
|
---|---|
Published in |
Nature, October 2016
|
DOI | 10.1038/nature19841 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Laurent Potvin-Trottier, Nathan D. Lord, Glenn Vinnicombe, Johan Paulsson |
Abstract |
Synthetically engineered genetic circuits can perform a wide variety of tasks but are generally less accurate than natural systems. Here we revisit the first synthetic genetic oscillator, the repressilator, and modify it using principles from stochastic chemistry in single cells. Specifically, we sought to reduce error propagation and information losses, not by adding control loops, but by simply removing existing features. We show that this modification created highly regular and robust oscillations. Furthermore, some streamlined circuits kept 14 generation periods over a range of growth conditions and kept phase for hundreds of generations in single cells, allowing cells in flasks and colonies to oscillate synchronously without any coupling between them. Our results suggest that even the simplest synthetic genetic networks can achieve a precision that rivals natural systems, and emphasize the importance of noise analyses for circuit design in synthetic biology. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 24 | 24% |
United Kingdom | 8 | 8% |
France | 5 | 5% |
Japan | 4 | 4% |
Switzerland | 3 | 3% |
India | 3 | 3% |
Australia | 2 | 2% |
Spain | 2 | 2% |
Netherlands | 2 | 2% |
Other | 9 | 9% |
Unknown | 40 | 39% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 54 | 53% |
Scientists | 42 | 41% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 4 | 4% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 2% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 3 | <1% |
France | 2 | <1% |
Sweden | 1 | <1% |
Germany | 1 | <1% |
China | 1 | <1% |
United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
Japan | 1 | <1% |
Spain | 1 | <1% |
Unknown | 608 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 170 | 27% |
Student > Bachelor | 94 | 15% |
Researcher | 82 | 13% |
Student > Master | 73 | 12% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 31 | 5% |
Other | 70 | 11% |
Unknown | 99 | 16% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 196 | 32% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 138 | 22% |
Engineering | 49 | 8% |
Physics and Astronomy | 39 | 6% |
Chemistry | 18 | 3% |
Other | 74 | 12% |
Unknown | 105 | 17% |