Circuit parts
To be able to design biological circuits one needs to have a toolkit of well characterized biological parts. These parts have a specific function, and often parts are designed to interact with each other. Circuit parts are derived from DNA sequences of different organisms and often they are modified.
Any functional biological sequence could potentially be used as a circuit part.
Following some examples of circuit parts:
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Promoters are essential for the expression of genes. There are countless promoters with a wide range of activities.
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The Coding sequence is the transcribed portion of a biological circuit downstream of the promoter. Coding sequences are usually translated into a protein that performs a desired function within the host cells.
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The Ribosome binding site (RBS) is a sequence that initiates the translation of the mRNA into a protein.
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Terminators are sequences that mark the end of transcription.
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Regulator genes regulate the expression of the gene of interest by activating or repressing gene expression.