Edinburgh/DivisionPopper/Applications
From 2007.igem.org
MENU : Introduction | Background | Applications | Design | Modelling | Status | Conclusions
The Division PoPper is a device designed appositely for being coupled with other devices in order to offer its functionality for more complex systems. The Division PoPper has not signal inputs, so there are no possible upstream devices connected. Instead it is a generator of output signal, generating a PoPS pulse each time it senses a cell division. In this sense, the use of a standard signal format as PoPS is a important characteristic for the compositional power and versatility of the device. In the ongoing work of implementing computational ability in cells, we think to be of immense interest a device able to "convert" a core physical behaviour (the division) to an information flow (the PoPS pulse). Here we details some potential uses for the Division PoPper when coupled with other devices.
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Division Counting
One possible application is to count the number of division of a cell, by coupling the device to a counter. The simplest configuration is to connect the output of the Division PoPper to the input of the counter. For example, the counter designed by ETH Zurich for the 2005 edition of iGEM is able to receive a PoPS pulse signal and to count of many pulses arrive (ETH Zurich counter). We developed a mathematical model that simulates the behaviour of such a system by integrating our ODEs model to the ODEs model of ETH counter (details in the Modelling section).
Why should be important to count cell divisions? For example for trigger cell death after a certain number of divisions, as security control for avoiding spread of engineered bacteria when relised in the environment for certain tasks. Another possibility is to associate a function at each different division number in order to have cell behaviour that changes during time.
| 'System view of the Division Counter |
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Division Frequency Analysis
The output of the Division PoPper could be linked to the production of a slowly degrading protein. Physically this can be easily achived by putting downstream a coding region that codes for the protein. The more frequent the divisions, the more often the PoPS pulse would expresses the protein and thus increase its concentretation. So it it would be possible to quantitatively associate protein concentration to the frequency of division. Since the frequency of division is sometime related to diseases in humans, this can be used for example for triggering cell reaction when a cell is dividing too fast.
(images coming soon)
