title: Optogenetic characterization methods overcome key challenges in synthetic and systems biology.
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.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Applied Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Evan J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Olson
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA. [2] Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Tabor
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D004560:Electricity; D004583:Electrons; D048049:Extracellular Signal-Regulated MAP Kinases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000528:radiation effects; D008027:Light; D062308:Optogenetics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000528:radiation effects; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D018631:ras Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004247:DNA; D048049:Extracellular Signal-Regulated MAP Kinases; D018631:ras Proteins