9 research outputs found
Engineering orthogonal dual transcription factors for multi-input synthetic promoters
Synthetic biology has seen an explosive growth in the capability of engineering artificial gene circuits from transcription factors (TFs), particularly in bacteria. However, most artificial networks still employ the same core set of TFs (for example LacI, TetR and cI). The TFs mostly function via repression and it is difficult to integrate multiple inputs in promoter logic. Here we present to our knowledge the first set of dual activator-repressor switches for orthogonal logic gates, based on bacteriophage λ cI variants and multi-input promoter architectures. Our toolkit contains 12 TFs, flexibly operating as activators, repressors, dual activator–repressors or dual repressor–repressors, on up to 270 synthetic promoters. To engineer non cross-reacting cI variants, we design a new M13 phagemid-based system for the directed evolution of biomolecules. Because cI is used in so many synthetic biology projects, the new set of variants will easily slot into the existing projects of other groups, greatly expanding current engineering capacities
Superconformal symmetry and maximal supergravity in various dimensions
In this paper we explore the relation between conformal superalgebras with 64
supercharges and maximal supergravity theories in three, four and six
dimensions using twistorial oscillator techniques. The massless fields of N=8
supergravity in four dimensions were shown to fit into a CPT-self-conjugate
doubleton supermultiplet of the conformal superalgebra SU(2,2|8) a long time
ago. We show that the fields of maximal supergravity in three dimensions can
similarly be fitted into the super singleton multiplet of the conformal
superalgebra OSp(16|4,R), which is related to the doubleton supermultiplet of
SU(2,2|8) by dimensional reduction. Moreover, we construct the ultra-short
supermultiplet of the six-dimensional conformal superalgebra OSp(8*|8) and show
that its component fields can be organized in an on-shell superfield. The
ultra-short OSp(8*|8) multiplet reduces to the doubleton supermultiplet of
SU(2,2|8) upon dimensional reduction. We discuss the possibility of a chiral
maximal (4,0) six-dimensional supergravity theory with USp(8) R-symmetry that
reduces to maximal supergravity in four dimensions and is different from
six-dimensional (2,2) maximal supergravity, whose fields cannot be fitted into
a unitary supermultiplet of a simple conformal superalgebra. Such an
interacting theory would be the gravitational analog of the (2,0) theory.Comment: 54 pages, PDFLaTeX, Section 5 and several references added. Version
accepted for publication in JHE
Engineering of biomolecules by bacteriophage directed evolution
Conventional in vivo directed evolution methods have primarily linked the biomolecule's activity to bacterial cell growth. Recent developments instead rely on the conditional growth of bacteriophages (phages), viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria. Here we review recent phage-based selection systems for in vivo directed evolution. These approaches have been applied to evolve a wide range of proteins including transcription factors, polymerases, proteases, DNA-binding proteins, and protein–protein interactions. Advances in this field expand the possible applications of protein and RNA engineering. This will ultimately result in new biomolecules with tailor-made properties, as well as giving us a better understanding of basic evolutionary processes