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Using light to control the interactions between a transcription factor and a gene promoter, a team of engineers has shown that specific interaction patterns can result in distinct levels of gene activity. In their paper, published this week (August 31) in Cell Systems, the team suggests this novel gene control mechanism could be harnessed for biotechnological applications.
“It’s pretty cool; it’s pretty novel. It takes a different view of how gene regulation works, or can work,” says bioengineer Jeff Tabor of Rice University who was not involved in the study. The study shows “how information can be encoded [in dynamic signals] . . . and how we can modify it to be able to program cellular behavior,” he says.
“It was a very impressive paper,” agrees bioengineer Lukasz Bugaj of the University of Pennsylvania who also did not participate in the project. “It’s a very ...
