Hidden Interactions Arising from Resource Sharing in Genetic Circuits

Synthetic genetic circuits run by using the host cell resources, such as ribosomes and RNA polymerase, which are found in limited amounts. The sharing of these resources by different circuit components creates subtle couplings among transcription factors, resulting into unexpected circuitâ??s behavior. This fact substantially harms the predictive power of design-oriented models and hinders our current ability of modularly composing circuits together. In this talk, I will illustrate through theory and experiments in bacteria E. coli the effects of resource sharing on genetic circuits. Our predictive and design-oriented modeling framework allows us to design circuits in order to minimize the effects of resource sharing. As circuitâ??s size grows in synthetic biology, it will be increasingly important to account for resource sharing in our models and to device mitigation strategies.