Speaking the Language: Genetic circuit components

One of the most important aspects of synthetic biology is also the most novel - designing biological circuits from standardized component parts. While genetic 'engineering' has been using recombinant DNA technology to produce useful strains of microbes since the 70s, their custom functions were not designed with parts from a repository of standard biological parts, like the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.

The "Part Types" page on partsregistry.org has a list of the kinds of parts used in plasmid circuits:

: Reporters, e.g. GFP


: Protein generators, e.g. the Banana Odor Generator from MIT 2006


: Inverters


: Composite Devices


: Signaling


: Measurement


: Ribosome Binding Sites


: Protein Coding


: Regulatory


: Terminators


: RNA


: Conjugation


: DNA


: Bioscaffold

Here is a standard mini-circuit for expressing GFP:

p(tetR)

R0040

.

B0034

GFP

E0040

.

B0010

.

B0012

As you can see, we have one Regulatory part, one RBS part (Ribosome Binding Site), one Protein Coding part (our GFP), and two Terminator parts. Expressed in a plasmid, this circuit will result in a glowing culture:

Biological circuits can enable a whole host of different abilities, like detecting arsenic in ground water, emitting a banana scent, mediating cell motility with light, etc. I will be profiling past iGEM teams, researching their projects and hopefully shedding light on to how their genetic circuits work.