IGEM

Project Description

The conversion of transient information into long-lasting responses is a common aspect of many biological processes and is crucial for the design of sophisticated synthetic circuits ^[1] . Whereas, the most cellular memories are limited to protein levels currently, which are transient, instantaneous and unapparent. To overcome these shortcuts, this year we design a system to achieve the storage of information by a transient stimulation but use a long-lasting response.

In this project, we try to complete a simulation of memorizer. The two processes are divided into separated bacterial strains to play as the “Recorder” and the “Saver”. The system is designed to be activated and deactivated via light- regulated fusion proteins ^[2] , which then active protein synthesis to complete the process. Once the system is activated by simulation of blue light, the information storage would be accomplished by conjugation, which cannot be carried out in usual time because of the specific gene deletion. When the memory needs to be erased, the CRISPR-Cas9 system in the “Saver” would be activated by the red light.

By design such a cellular memory technology, we make a bacterial memory storage device. And together with biological transistor and other bio-electronic component, we can preview the prototype of the biological computer.

Refrences:

[1] Farzadfard F, Lu T K. Genomically encoded analog memory with precise in vivo DNA writing in living cell populations[J]. science, 2014, 346(6211): 1256272.

[2] Möglich A, Ayers R A, Moffat K. Design and signaling mechanism of light-regulated histidine kinases[J]. Journal of molecular biology, 2009, 385(5): 1433-1444.