(466c) Exploring and Exploiting Chromatin to Process Dynamic Optogenetic Signals

Cells receive dynamic signals from their complex environments. There are a variety of ways in which cells could filter and process these signals including through protein signaling networks and gene regulatory networks, among others. Interestingly, in eukaryotic cells, the process of expressing just a single gene can be quite complex, involving a series of steps and many proteins including those that comprise chromatin, polymerases, Mediator components, cis-elements, and transcription factors. We hypothesize that the complexity of eukaryotic gene expression could not only process dynamic signals but be exploited through synthetic biology and optogenetic approaches to drive novel gene expression patterns. To test this hypothesis, we constructed a library of optogenetically-recruited chromatin regulators and assessed their distinct activation patterns including in their temporal and spatial noise, filtering, and kinetic properties. This chromatin library serves as a tool to both synthetically regulate genes in sophisticated patterns as well as to study fundamental mechanisms of gene expression and natural signal processing.