Infographic: How to Build a Synthetic Sensor

Scientists designed a genetic sensor-and-readout system, based on detecting a transcription factor, that performs a custom cellular activity.

Written byRuth Williams

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In this example of a typical transducer, the genetic construct (top) includes an amplifier response element and a carefully positioned transcription factor response element upstream of a promoter that drives expression of a fusion gene (the combined effector of choice and an amplifier). In the presence of a specific endogenous transcription factor, which binds to the transcription factor response element, the fusion gene is expressed. Cleavage of the fusion protein releases the amplifier, which together with the transcription factor drives much stronger expression. The system is like a positive feedback loop, but neither the transcription factor nor the amplifier alone can drive strong expression—they need each other.

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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