title: Ultrasensitive Negative Feedback Control: A Natural Approach for the Design of Synthetic Controllers.
abstract: Many of the most important potential applications of Synthetic Biology will require the ability to design and implement high performance feedback control systems that can accurately regulate the dynamics of multiple molecular species within the cell. Here, we argue that the use of design strategies based on combining ultrasensitive response dynamics with negative feedback represents a natural approach to this problem that fully exploits the strongly nonlinear nature of cellular information processing. We propose that such feedback mechanisms can explain the adaptive responses observed in one of the most widely studied biomolecular feedback systems-the yeast osmoregulatory response network. Based on our analysis of such system, we identify strong links with a well-known branch of mathematical systems theory from the field of Control Engineering, known as Sliding Mode Control. These insights allow us to develop design guidelines that can inform the construction of feedback controllers for synthetic biological systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Montefusco
authors.affiliation: College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ozgur E
authors.initials: OE
authors.lastname: Akman
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Orkun S
authors.initials: OS
authors.lastname: Soyer
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Declan G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Bates
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000465:Algorithms; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D005990:Glycerol / Q000378:metabolism; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D064587:Osmoregulation / Q000502:physiology; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D005990:Glycerol