IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v481y2012i7379d10.1038_nature10722.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A sensing array of radically coupled genetic ‘biopixels’

Author

Listed:
  • Arthur Prindle

    (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

  • Phillip Samayoa

    (Bioinformatics Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

  • Ivan Razinkov

    (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

  • Tal Danino

    (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

  • Lev S. Tsimring

    (BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

  • Jeff Hasty

    (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
    Bioinformatics Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
    BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
    Molecular Biology Section, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA)

Abstract

Although there has been considerable progress in the development of engineering principles for synthetic biology, a substantial challenge is the construction of robust circuits in a noisy cellular environment. Such an environment leads to considerable intercellular variability in circuit behaviour, which can hinder functionality at the colony level. Here we engineer the synchronization of thousands of oscillating colony ‘biopixels’ over centimetre-length scales through the use of synergistic intercellular coupling involving quorum sensing within a colony and gas-phase redox signalling between colonies. We use this platform to construct a liquid crystal display (LCD)-like macroscopic clock that can be used to sense arsenic via modulation of the oscillatory period. Given the repertoire of sensing capabilities of bacteria such as Escherichia coli, the ability to coordinate their behaviour over large length scales sets the stage for the construction of low cost genetic biosensors that are capable of detecting heavy metals and pathogens in the field.

Suggested Citation

  • Arthur Prindle & Phillip Samayoa & Ivan Razinkov & Tal Danino & Lev S. Tsimring & Jeff Hasty, 2012. "A sensing array of radically coupled genetic ‘biopixels’," Nature, Nature, vol. 481(7379), pages 39-44, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:481:y:2012:i:7379:d:10.1038_nature10722
    DOI: 10.1038/nature10722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10722
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature10722?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andras Gyorgy, 2023. "Competition and evolutionary selection among core regulatory motifs in gene expression control," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Jung Hun Park & Gábor Holló & Yolanda Schaerli, 2024. "From resonance to chaos by modulating spatiotemporal patterns through a synthetic optogenetic oscillator," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:481:y:2012:i:7379:d:10.1038_nature10722. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.