Team:TU Munich

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Welcome to the iGEM Team of the Technische Universität München.


Contents

Preliminary Project Description

Molecular Networks and State of the Art

A fundamental task in the creation of a new biological systems is the development of sophisticated and flexible logic networks. A logic network responds to incoming signals and creates output signals in a precisely determined manner. This is accomplished by interconnecting and rearranging basic logical units. Until now, several types of networks have been developed using logical units such as riboswitches or genetic switches. However, these biological logic units relied mainly on protein-based or metabolite-based interactions, which remain poorly understood. The undissolved de novo creation of specific protein or metabolite interactions limits the ability to design large networks of sufficient complexity.

Project Goals

To overcome the limitations mentioned above, our goal is to design a new type of logical unit. This novel "switch" has to be capable of building up logic gates which in turn can form a complex network. To fulfill this requirement, we used the main principle of electric circuits as template. An electric circuit consists of several transistors and interconnecting wires. Whereas all transistors are built equally, wires generate a specific addressing resulting in the desired logic operation. For our switch, each logic units contains a recognition element for addressing and a switching core resembling the transitor. To implement this basic concept, the recognition site uses specific RNA-RNA-hybridization, the switching core is designed in the style of transcriptional termination/antitermination processes occuring in nature.

Current work

Currently we are developing an assay to screen several termination processes in vivo and in vitro to obtain an optimized switching core, capable of antitermination and compatible to our recognition site. Future work will focus on fine-tuning one or more switching candidates. The goal is to establish a robust switching core as module, which can simply and specifically be addressed by varing the sequence of the recognition site.


Abstract Among the goals of iGEM is the creation of synthetic biological parts and their utilization to achieve novel features and behavior in biological systems. The emphasis of our project is put on this latter, "systems" aspect of iGEM. More precisely, we aim at the development and experimental demonstration of a scalable approach for the realization of logical functions in vivo. By developing a computational biological network based on RNA logical devices we will offer everyone the opportunity to 'program' their own cells with individual AND/OR/NOT connections between BioBricks of their choice. Thereby, BioBricks can finally fulfill their original assignment as biological parts that can be connected in many different ways. We will achieve this by engineering simple and easy-to-handle switches based on predictable RNA/RNA-interactions regulating transcriptional termination. These switches represent a complete set of logical functions and are capable of forming arbitrarily complex networks.

Zusammenfassung Das Entwerfen von neuen Bausteinen für die synthetische Biologie und ihr Zusammenfügen, um neue Funktionen und Charakteristika in biologische System zu bringen, sind mit die Hauptziele des iGEM-Wettbewerbes. Dabei wollen wir uns besonders auf letzteres konzentrieren und suchen eine systemische Anwendung von iGEM-Bausteinen zu etablieren. Unser Ziel ist es, einen skalierbaren Ansatz zu entwerfen, mit dem biologische Teile in vivo zu einem skalierbaren Netzwerk zusammengefügt werden können, das fähig ist zur logischen Informationsprozessierung. Durch die Entwicklung eines biologischen Netzwerkes, das analog zu einem Computer aufgebaut ist, bieten wir allen die Mögichkeit, Zellen zu programmieren und logische Netzwerke basierend auf AND/OR/NOT-Verbindungen zwischen Biobrick-Parts zu entwickeln. Dadurch können Biobricks auch endlich ihre Funktion als biologische Bausteine, die beliebig miteinander verknüpft werden können, erfüllen. Um das zu erreichen, haben wir einfache und benutzerfreundliche Schalter basierend auf berechenbaren RNA-RNA-Interaktion konstruiert, die durch Antitermination schalten können. Mit Hilfe dieser Schalter kann man komplette logische Funktionen aufbauen und beliebig komplexe Netzwerke entwerfen.