Project Summary

Which is our idea?

The project aims to design a new device to control the synthesis of a protein in Escherichia coli regardless of the protein to be controlled. This "general-purpose" standard device acts on translation to allow a faster silencing of protein expression if compared to standard regulated promoters. We named this device T-Rex (Trans Repressor of Expression).

How does T-Rex work?

The device consists of two new BioBricks:

• CIS-repressing, to be assembled upstream of the target coding sequence.

• TRANS-repressor, complementary to the CIS-repressing and placed under the control of a different promoter.

CIS-repressing and TRANS-repressor were designed using our BASER software.

Transcription of the target gene produces a mRNA strand, starting with the Cis element, which is translated into proteins by ribosome. Trans’ promoter induction produces a transcript that binds with the Cis part. The RNA duplex prevents ribosome from binding to RBS, repressing protein synthesis. Thus, the TRANS-repressor amount regulates the gene mRNA translation rate (Fig 1)

Fig 1. T-Rex device

How can we test the device?


In order to test and characterize our T-REX device, we developed the following genetic circuit (Fig 2):

Fig 2. Genetic Circuit

The T-REX device is proposed as a universal and fast switch in synthetic gene circuits.

More details about our work in the Project section.

Acknowledgements

• [http://www.unibo.it/Portale/default.htm University of Bologna]

• [http://serinar.criad.unibo.it Ser.In.Ar. Cesena]

• Cultural Association San Sebastiano

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