Rational construction of a cellular memory inverter  

作　　者：CHEN Mei ZHANG Lu XU Jin 

机构地区：[1]School of Information Engineering,Minzu University of China [2]Institute of Software,School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science,Key Laboratory for High Confidence Software Technologies of Ministry of Education,Peking University

出　　处：《Science China(Information Sciences)》2015年第1期96-103,共8页中国科学（信息科学）（英文版）

基　　金：supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant Nos. 2013CB329601, 2013CB329602);National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61127005, 60974112, 60910002, 61379059)

摘　　要：Robust and reliable biological memory computing systems are lacking, although many biological computing systems are implemented. We successfully designed, constructed, and tested a cellular memory inverter in the bacterium Escherichia coli in a predictable way. We selected isopropyl-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside（IPTG） as the input and green fluorescent protein（GFP） as the output. We selected negative regulation of lac operon and excision function of Cre recombinase as computing tools. The GFP can express and produce output without IPTG. The input, IPTG, can induce the expression of Cre recombinase. The Cre recombinase can excise the GFP gene between site lox71 and site lox66, and hence turn off the output. We also selected ordinary differential equations（ODEs） to predict the dynamic behaviors for the precise design and implementation of the inverter. We used sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis（SDS-PAGE）, colony Polymerase Chain Reaction（PCR）, and fluorescent quantitative analysis techniques to verify the function of our inverter.The study provides a new biological memory computing system. The Cre recombinase functions used here should be useful in the construction of biological memory computing systems.Robust and reliable biological memory computing systems are lacking, although many biological computing systems are implemented. We successfully designed, constructed, and tested a cellular memory inverter in the bacterium Escherichia coli in a predictable way. We selected isopropyl-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside（IPTG） as the input and green fluorescent protein（GFP） as the output. We selected negative regulation of lac operon and excision function of Cre recombinase as computing tools. The GFP can express and produce output without IPTG. The input, IPTG, can induce the expression of Cre recombinase. The Cre recombinase can excise the GFP gene between site lox71 and site lox66, and hence turn off the output. We also selected ordinary differential equations（ODEs） to predict the dynamic behaviors for the precise design and implementation of the inverter. We used sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis（SDS-PAGE）, colony Polymerase Chain Reaction（PCR）, and fluorescent quantitative analysis techniques to verify the function of our inverter.The study provides a new biological memory computing system. The Cre recombinase functions used here should be useful in the construction of biological memory computing systems.

关 键 词：cellular memory inverter lac operon cre recombinase ordinary differential equation（ODE） biological computing system 

分 类 号：TM464[电气工程—电器]