• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Sunday, February 28, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Winner-takes-all synthetic gene circuit process opens new pathways to disease treatment

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 8, 2021
in Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Division of synthetic gene circuit workloads will make therapy more effective.

IMAGE

Credit: Graphic created by Xiaojun Tian/ASU.

A new process for inserting synthetic gene circuits into host cells, developed by a team of bioengineers at Arizona State University, has broad implications for improving the effectiveness of a range of disease therapies.

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary research field that uses engineering principles to create biological components that don’t exist in the natural world. These synthetic components mimic naturally evolved organisms, but are customized to fight disease, including cancer.

A paper recently published in Nature Communications, “Winner-Takes-All Resource Competition Redirects Cascading Cell Fate Transitions,” outlines how gene circuits can be reconfigured so that they do not overwhelm the host cells.

“We connect circuits together like a Lego chain and insert them into a host cell,” explained lead author Xiaojun Tian, an assistant professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at ASU. “The circuits in the chain are designed to perform different functions, but they must compete with each other for the cell’s limited resources.”

Competition for resources has been a challenge in the synthetic biology field since its inception 20 years ago. “We would find circumstances where one gene circuit in a chain would consume 90 percent of a host cell’s available resources, leaving only 10 percent for the remaining circuit.”

Tian’s team devised a way to insert individual gene circuits into multiple host cells that work collectively. Each cell performs a specific function, eliminating the undesired competition for resources of any host cell. “Instead of dividing resources, each cell can perform 100 percent of its assigned workload,” said Tian. “The host cells perform as a connected unit without depleting any one cell’s resources – and each gene circuit becomes a winner.”

The technology has broad implications for cancer treatment, with future applications for other diseases on the horizon. Ninety percent of cancer deaths are due to metastasis – the spread of cancer cells to other sites in the body. However, treatment resistance is still a major problem in cancer therapeutics.

“There are many different kinds of cells in a cancer mass,” said Tian. “Some cells are responsive to chemotherapy and others are not, causing treatment resistance.

New multitasking synthetic gene circuitry configuration can be constructed to prevent the cells from metastasizing in the first place, while simultaneously making them more receptive to treatment.”

Tian explains that multicellular synthetic circuits will be a much more effective way to treat cancer.

###

The research team also includes Rong Zhang, Hanah Goetz, Juan Melendez-Alvarez, Jiao Li, and Xiao Wang from Arizona State University and Tian Ding from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the ASU Dean’s Fellowship.

Media Contact
Theresa Grant
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21125-3

Tags: BiologyBiomedical/Environmental/Chemical EngineeringBiotechnologycancerCell BiologyGene TherapyMicrobiology
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

IMAGE

UTA researcher explores effects of trauma at the cellular, tissue levels of the brain

February 26, 2021
IMAGE

Picture books can boost physical activity for youth with autism

February 26, 2021

Oahu marine protected areas offer limited protection of coral reef herbivorous fishes

February 26, 2021

Sensing robot healthcare helpers being developed at SFU

February 26, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Terahertz accelerates beyond 5G towards 6G

    644 shares
    Share 258 Tweet 161
  • People living with HIV face premature heart disease and barriers to care

    82 shares
    Share 33 Tweet 21
  • Global analysis suggests COVID-19 is seasonal

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • HIV: an innovative therapeutic breakthrough to optimize the immune system

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Public HealthCell BiologyGeneticsMaterialsChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesBiologyEcology/EnvironmentTechnology/Engineering/Computer SciencecancerMedicine/HealthClimate ChangeInfectious/Emerging Diseases

Recent Posts

  • Sensing suns
  • Predicts the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) using deep learning-based Splice-AI
  • When foams collapse (and when they don’t)
  • UTA researcher explores effects of trauma at the cellular, tissue levels of the brain
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In