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Controlling spatiotemporal pattern formation in a concentration gradient with a synthetic toggle switch.

Içvara Barbier¹, Rubén Perez-Carrasco^2,3, Yolanda Schaerli¹

¹Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Molecular Systems Biology

|June 13, 2020

Summary

Synthetic gene circuits using toggle switches can create sharp gene expression patterns from molecular gradients. This study demonstrates controllable pattern formation in E. coli, highlighting circuit flexibility.

Keywords:

bistability dynamical systems gene regulatory networks pattern formation synthetic biology

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Area of Science:

Synthetic biology
Systems biology
Molecular biology

Background:

Gene expression patterns are often formed by signaling molecule gradients.
Toggle switch subnetworks, with cross-repressing transcription factors, generate discrete gene expression stripes from continuous gradient information.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a synthetic biology framework for analyzing toggle switch spatiotemporal patterning.
To characterize the properties of a synthetic toggle switch circuit in Escherichia coli.

Main Methods:

Construction of a synthetic toggle switch responsive to diffusible molecules in E. coli.
Quantitative measurements combined with mathematical modeling to analyze circuit dynamics.
Investigation of pattern boundary control through bistability and hysteresis.

Main Results:

The synthetic toggle switch generates robust gene expression patterns with sharp boundaries.
Bistability and hysteresis govern the observed patterning.
Control over hysteresis, boundary position, timing, and precision was achieved.

Conclusions:

Synthetic toggle switches offer a flexible platform for generating controlled spatiotemporal gene expression patterns.
The study highlights the dynamical control achievable in synthetic gene regulatory networks.