Squaring a Circle: To What Extent Are Traditional Circuit Analogies Impeding Synthetic Biology?
Squaring a Circle: To What Extent Are Traditional Circuit Analogies Impeding Synthetic Biology?
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DOI：
10.1089/genbio.2021.0014
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发表时间：
2022-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Del Vecchio, Domitilla
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ilia, Katherine;Del Vecchio, Domitilla
通过与电子和计算机工程的类比，模块化设计原则极大地塑造了合成生物学。虽然很方便，但这些相似之处在实践中往往会被打破，我们仍然无法设计出像预测的那样运行的复杂系统。由于自然界已经实现了强大而复杂的程序，而不需要严格的模块化，我们可能想要重新审视基因电路设计方法。与其追求模块化，我们可以致力于一个强大的和可扩展的设计框架，包括上下文依赖性给生物底盘工程带来的不确定性。系统和控制理论提供了一个起点，但需要一个实质性的概念飞跃来定量预测系统行为并建立灵活的上下文感知设计过程。只有克服了这些障碍，我们才能将合成生物学（尤其是生物技术）用于医学、环境工程和能源生产。
Synthetic biology has been significantly shaped by modular design principles through analogies to electrical and computer engineering. Although convenient, these parallels often break down in practice, and we are still largely unable to engineer sophisticated systems that behave as predicted. As nature has achieved robust and intricate programs without requiring strict modularity, we may want to revisit genetic circuit design approaches. Rather than pursuing modularity, we could aim for a robust and scalable design framework that embraces the uncertainty that context dependence brings to engineering in a biological chassis. Systems and control theory offer a starting point, but a substantial conceptual leap will be needed to quantitatively predict system behavior and establish flexible context-aware design processes. Only by overcoming these hurdles shall we be able to capitalize on synthetic biology in particular-and on biotechnology in general-for medicine, environmental engineering, and energy production.