Win Maung Nyan, Smolke Christina D
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, MC 210-41, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Science. 2008 Oct 17;322(5900):456-60. doi: 10.1126/science.1160311.
The engineering of biological systems is anticipated to provide effective solutions to challenges that include energy and food production, environmental quality, and health and medicine. Our ability to transmit information to and from living systems, and to process and act on information inside cells, is critical to advancing the scale and complexity at which we can engineer, manipulate, and probe biological systems. We developed a general approach for assembling RNA devices that can execute higher-order cellular information processing operations from standard components. The engineered devices can function as logic gates (AND, NOR, NAND, or OR gates) and signal filters, and exhibit cooperativity. RNA devices process and transmit molecular inputs to targeted protein outputs, linking computation to gene expression and thus the potential to control cellular function.
生物系统工程有望为包括能源和食品生产、环境质量以及健康与医学等方面的挑战提供有效的解决方案。我们向生物系统传输信息以及从生物系统接收信息，以及在细胞内处理信息并据此采取行动的能力，对于提升我们设计、操控和探测生物系统的规模与复杂性至关重要。我们开发了一种通用方法来组装RNA装置，该装置能够利用标准组件执行高阶细胞信息处理操作。这些工程化装置可作为逻辑门（与门、或非门、与非门或或门）和信号滤波器，并表现出协同性。RNA装置处理分子输入并将其传输至靶向蛋白质输出，将计算与基因表达联系起来，从而具备控制细胞功能的潜力。
