title: Designer cell signal processing circuits for biotechnology.
abstract: Microorganisms are able to respond effectively to diverse signals from their environment and internal metabolism owing to their inherent sophisticated information processing capacity. A central aim of synthetic biology is to control and reprogramme the signal processing pathways within living cells so as to realise repurposed, beneficial applications ranging from disease diagnosis and environmental sensing to chemical bioproduction. To date most examples of synthetic biological signal processing have been built based on digital information flow, though analogue computing is being developed to cope with more complex operations and larger sets of variables. Great progress has been made in expanding the categories of characterised biological components that can be used for cellular signal manipulation, thereby allowing synthetic biologists to more rationally programme increasingly complex behaviours into living cells. Here we present a current overview of the components and strategies that exist for designer cell signal processing and decision making, discuss how these have been implemented in prototype systems for therapeutic, environmental, and industrial biotechnological applications, and examine emerging challenges in this promising field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK; Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK.
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.affiliation: Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK. Electronic address: Baojun.Wang@ed.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Baojun
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D060847:Metabolic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D064688:Metabolic Flux Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D020543:Proteome / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D020543:Proteome