Programmable full-adder computations in communicating three-dimensional cell cultures

Nat Methods. 2018 Jan;15(1):57-60. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.4505. Epub 2017 Dec 4.

Abstract

Synthetic biologists have advanced the design of trigger-inducible gene switches and their assembly into input-programmable circuits that enable engineered human cells to perform arithmetic calculations reminiscent of electronic circuits. By designing a versatile plug-and-play molecular-computation platform, we have engineered nine different cell populations with genetic programs, each of which encodes a defined computational instruction. When assembled into 3D cultures, these engineered cell consortia execute programmable multicellular full-adder logics in response to three trigger compounds.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Culture Techniques / methods*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks*
  • Genes, Reporter
  • Humans
  • Software*
  • Synthetic Biology / methods*