ArticlePloS one2014
How to make a synthetic multicellular computer.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Burden-aware feedback control of microbial consortia.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Partitioning of a 2-bit hash function across 66 communicating cells.Nature chemical biology · 2025Article
- Open problems in synthetic multicellularity.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2024Article
- Emergent digital bio-computation through spatial diffusion and engineered bacteria.Nature communications · 2024Article
- From Microbial Communities to Distributed Computing Systems.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2020Review
- Genome-Scale Analysis Identifies Novel Transcript-Variants in Esophageal Adenocarcinoma.Cellular and molecular gastroenterology and hepatology · 2020Article
- Pathways to cellular supremacy in biocomputing.Nature communications · 2019Review
- Evolutionary aspects of reservoir computing.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Hierarchical composition of reliable recombinase logic devices.Nature communications · 2019Article
- An Automated Design Framework for Multicellular Recombinase Logic.ACS synthetic biology · 2018Article
- Synthetic associative learning in engineered multicellular consortia.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2017Article
- Functionalizing Soft Matter for Molecular Communication.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2015Article
- Transcription factor-based biosensors enlightened by the analyte.Frontiers in microbiology · 2015Review
- Artificial cell-cell communication as an emerging tool in synthetic biology applications.Journal of biological engineering · 2015Article
- Computational implementation of a tunable multicellular memory circuit for engineered eukaryotic consortia.Frontiers in physiology · 2015Article
- Recent advances and opportunities in synthetic logic gates engineering in living cells.Systems and synthetic biology · 2014Review
- Cellular signaling circuits interfaced with synthetic, post-translational, negating Boolean logic devices.ACS synthetic biology · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Biological systems perform computations at multiple scales and they do so in a robust way. Engineering metaphors have often been used in order to provide a rationale for modeling cellular and molecular computing networks and as the basis for their synthetic design. However, a major constraint in this mapping between electronic and wet computational circuits is the wiring problem. Although wires are identical within electronic devices, they must be different when using synthetic biology designs. Moreover, in most cases the designed molecular systems cannot be reused for other functions. A new approximation allows us to simplify the problem by using synthetic cellular consortia where the output of the computation is distributed over multiple engineered cells. By evolving circuits in silico, we can obtain the minimal sets of Boolean units required to solve the given problem at the lowest cost using cellular consortia. Our analysis reveals that the basic set of logic units is typically non-standard. Among the most common units, the so called inverted IMPLIES (N-Implies) appears to be one of the most important elements along with the NOT and AND functions. Although NOR and NAND gates are widely used in electronics, evolved circuits based on combinations of these gates are rare, thus suggesting that the strategy of combining the same basic logic gates might be inappropriate in order to easily implement synthetic computational constructs. The implications for future synthetic designs, the general view of synthetic biology as a standard engineering domain, as well as potencial drawbacks are outlined.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.