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Next generation synthetic memory via intercepting recombinase function.

Andrew E Short¹, Dowan Kim¹, Prasaad T Milner¹

¹Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Nature Communications

|August 29, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

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We developed a new synthetic memory technology that uses post-translational regulation to control recombinase function, enabling faster and more versatile genetic memory in living systems.

Area of Science:

Synthetic biology
Molecular biology
Genetic engineering

Background:

Transcriptional Programming enables decision-making in living systems.
Existing synthetic memory technologies have limitations in speed and capacity.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a novel synthetic memory technology by regulating recombinase function post-translationally.
To enhance the speed, capacity, and functionality of synthetic memory in biological systems.

Main Methods:

Repurposing Transcriptional Programming parts to intercept recombinase function post-translation.
Implementing site-specific deletion for loss-of-function and inversion for gain-of-function.
Engineering nested Boolean logic operations for complex memory functions.

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Main Results:

Achieved programmable loss-of-function and gain-of-function.
Demonstrated synthetic memory operations with nested Boolean logic.
Expanded memory capacity over 5-fold for a single recombinase with parallel multi-site reconfiguration.
Achieved ~10-times faster recombination speeds compared to previous methods.

Conclusions:

Interception synthetic memory offers a significant advancement in speed and capacity.
Post-translational regulation is key to the enhanced performance of this next-generation memory technology.
This technology is complementary to Transcriptional Programming, paving the way for intelligent synthetic biological systems.