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Slow growth leads to a switch

Synthetic biologists aim to rationally design and construct useful biological circuits. However, perturbation of host cell physiology, through the very process of turning on an artificial circuit, can give rise to unexpected emergent behaviors, such as bistability.

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Figure 1: Insertion of a synthetic gene circuit into a host organism can modulate the physiology of the host, in turn changing the behavior of the circuit.

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Correspondence to Keith Shearwin.

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Shearwin, K. Slow growth leads to a switch. Nat Chem Biol 5, 784–785 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.248

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