Genetic circuit engineering articles from across Nature Portfolio

As synthetic biology permeates society, the signal processing circuits in engineered living systems must be customized to meet practical demands. In this review, the authors outline design strategies for the DNA, RNA, and protein-level circuits and the hybrid “multi-level” circuits.

The rational design and implementation of synthetic mammalian communication systems can unravel fundamental design principles of cell communication circuits and offer a framework for engineering of designer cell consortia with potential applications in cell therapeutics. Here the authors present a synthetic communication platform in mammalian cells based on diffusible dipeptide ligands and synthetic receptors, that is by design highly orthogonal, scalable, and programmable.

Plastic pollution is rapidly increasing worldwide, causing adverse impacts on the environment, wildlife and human health. Here the authors present a synthetic microbial consortium that efficiently degrades polyethylene terephthalate hydrolysate and upcycles it to desired chemicals through cellular division of labor.

Memory is a basic tenet of intelligent biological systems. Here the authors engineered a programmable and expandable iteration of recombinase-based synthetic memory (interception) that functions post-translation, resulting in faster recombination.

The ability to independently control the expression of different genes is important for quantitative biology. Here, the authors report kinetic parameters, noise scaling, impact on growth, and the fundamental leakiness of a wide range of inducible transcriptional systems, including a new, highly light sensitive LOV-transcription factor.

A library of degrons allows tuning of half-life and expression levels of proteins in genetic circuits.

Co-culture of bacterial cells engineered with quorum-sensing and self-lysis circuits allows coupled oscillatory dynamics and stable states, opening the way to engineered microbial ecosystems with targeted dynamics and extending gene circuits to the ecosystem level.

A self-adjusting synthetic gene circuit senses and reverses insulin resistance in animal models of diabetes and obesity.

Two studies report on two independent synthetic biology approaches to tackle hyperglycaemia and insulin resistance that are associated with diabetes.

The development of temperature-inducible molecular bioswitches allows on-demand activation of synthetic genetic circuits in microbes.