Computational genes: a tool for molecular diagnosis and therapy of aberrant mutational phenotype

A finite state machine manipulating information-carrying DNA strands can be used to perform autonomous molecular-scale computations at the cellular level.

We propose a new finite state machine able to detect and correct aberrant molecular phenotype given by mutated genetic transcripts. The aberrant mutations trigger a cascade reaction: specific molecular markers as input are released and induce a spontaneous self-assembly of a wild type protein or peptide, while the mutational disease phenotype is silenced. We experimentally demostrated in in vitro translation system that a viable protein can be autonomously assembled.

Our work demostrates the basic principles of computational genes and particularly, their potential to detect mutations, and as a response thereafter administer an output that suppresses the aberrant disease phenotype and/or restores the lost physiological function.