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Team:Imperial College London/Genetic Circuit
From 2009.igem.org
Contents |
Genetic Circuits
Here we go through the genetic circuit of The E.ncapsulator system. The design of the circuit has been kept very modular to facilitate reusability.
We will go through the genetic design of the system, module by module. If you are unfamiliar with genetic circuit diagrams, scroll down to the bottom of the page to check out our key to familiarise yourself with each circuit symbol and what it means. Otherwise scroll down to view our modular genetic circuits.
Modular Genetic Circuits
Key to Genetic Circuit Diagrams
This key explains some of the symbols used for the genetic circuit diagrams.
A promoter is a genetic element in DNA that regulates the transcription of a downstream gene. Promoters can be induced or repressed by external factors and the expression of the downstream gene is consequently under control of the same external factors. We use promoters as the control mechanisms under which the expression of our genes is controlled.
An RBS is a ribosome binding site. This is a region of DNA to which the ribosome binds in the initiation of protein translation. An RBS is required adjacent to each coding sequence to in order to have expression.
A Protein Coding Sequence is commonly referred to as a gene. This is a section of DNA of which the nucleotide sequence is translated by ribosomes into the amino acid sequence of proteins.
Terminators are required at the end of each operon (genes under control of one promoter) in order to signal to the RNA polymerase that the operon has finished, and to release from the DNA strand during DNA transcription. We have used double terminators as standard to improve the efficiency.
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