Team:Virginia Commonwealth

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Promoter design, characterization and consequences

The generation of well-characterized genetic parts (e.g., promoters, enhancers, RNA aptazymes) is a prerequisite for the rational design and construction of reliable genetically-encoded devices and systems. However, most opensource parts (including those in the Registry) remain largely uncharacterized. We developed a tractable, universal analytical approach for the quantitative characterization of promoter performance using both mRNA and protein measurements, and propose this as a minimal promoter measurement standard. In an effort to elucidate promoter design principles, we have also designed and characterized new promoter and enhancer sequences. Our goal is to contribute to the advancement of fundamental synthetic biology by characterizing new and existing promoters and enhancers, which may serve as a model for describing other basic parts such as ribosome binding sites (RBSs) and transcriptional terminators.