Optogenetic Characterization Methods Overcome Key Challenges in Synthetic and Systems Biology

Overview

Journal Nat Chem Biol

Specialties Biochemistry
Biology
Chemistry

Date 2014 Jun 18

PMID 24937068

Citations 31

Authors

Evan J Olson

Jeffrey J Tabor

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Systems biologists aim to understand how organism-level processes, such as differentiation and multicellular development, are encoded in DNA. Conversely, synthetic biologists aim to program systems-level biological processes, such as engineered tissue growth, by writing artificial DNA sequences. To achieve their goals, these groups have adapted a hierarchical electrical engineering framework that can be applied in the forward direction to design complex biological systems or in the reverse direction to analyze evolved networks. Despite much progress, this framework has been limited by an inability to directly and dynamically characterize biological components in the varied contexts of living cells. Recently, two optogenetic methods for programming custom gene expression and protein localization signals have been developed and used to reveal fundamentally new information about biological components that respond to those signals. This basic dynamic characterization approach will be a major enabling technology in synthetic and systems biology.

Citing Articles

Dynamic Multiplexed Control and Modeling of Optogenetic Systems Using the High-Throughput Optogenetic Platform, Lustro.

Harmer Z, Thompson J, Cole D, Venturelli O, Zavala V, McClean M ACS Synth Biol. 2024; 13(5):1424-1433.

PMID: 38684225 PMC: 11106771. DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00761.

Engineering of a Promoter Repressed by a Light-Regulated Transcription Factor in .

Camsund D, Jaramillo A, Lindblad P Biodes Res. 2023; 2021:9857418.

PMID: 37849950 PMC: 10521638. DOI: 10.34133/2021/9857418.

High-Throughput Optogenetics Experiments in Yeast Using the Automated Platform Lustro.

Harmer Z, McClean M J Vis Exp. 2023; (198).

PMID: 37590537 PMC: 11085938. DOI: 10.3791/65686.

Lustro: High-Throughput Optogenetic Experiments Enabled by Automation and a Yeast Optogenetic Toolkit.

Harmer Z, McClean M ACS Synth Biol. 2023; 12(7):1943-1951.

PMID: 37434272 PMC: 10368012. DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.3c00215.

Multidimensional characterization of inducible promoters and a highly light-sensitive LOV-transcription factor.

Gligorovski V, Sadeghi A, Rahi S Nat Commun. 2023; 14(1):3810.

PMID: 37369667 PMC: 10300134. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38959-8.

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