A longstanding goal of synthetic biology has been the programmable control of cellular functions. Central to this is the creation of versatile regulatory toolsets that allow for programmable control of gene expression. Of the many regulatory molecules available, RNA regulators offer the intriguing possibility of de novo design – allowing for the bottom-up molecular-level design of genetic control systems. Here we present a computational design approach for the creation of a bacterial regulator called Small Transcription Activating RNAs (STARs) and create a library of high-performing and orthogonal STARs that achieve up to ~9000-fold gene activation. We demonstrate the versatility of these STARs – from acting synergistically with existing constitutive and inducible regulators, to reprogramming cellular phenotypes and controlling multigene metabolic pathway expression. Finally, we combine these new STARs with themselves and CRISPRi transcriptional repressors to deliver new types of RNA-based genetic circuitry that allow for sophisticated and temporal control of gene expression. Nature Communications, 2017

Last modified

• 01/07/2020

Creator

• Matthew Verosloff
• Alexandra Westbrook
• James Chappell
• Julius B. Lucks

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2CJ3K

Subject

• Synthetic Biology
• RNA engineering

Publisher

• MacMillan Publishers

Language

• English

Alternate Identifier

• doi:10.21985/N28S9B

Keyword

• transcription
• RNA
• RNA engineering
• synthetic biology
• gene regulation

Date created

• 2017-08-03

Related url

•  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01082-6

Resource type

• Dataset

Source

• Nature Communications

Rights statement

• In Copyright

License

• Attribution 3.0 United States