Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli

Timothy S. Gardner, Charles R. Cantor and James J. Collins ()
Additional contact information
Timothy S. Gardner: Department of Biomedical Engineering
Charles R. Cantor: Department of Biomedical Engineering
James J. Collins: Department of Biomedical Engineering

Nature, 2000, vol. 403, issue 6767, 339-342

Abstract: Abstract It has been proposed1 that gene-regulatory circuits with virtually any desired property can be constructed from networks of simple regulatory elements. These properties, which include multistability and oscillations, have been found in specialized gene circuits such as the bacteriophage λ switch2 and the Cyanobacteria circadian oscillator3. However, these behaviours have not been demonstrated in networks of non-specialized regulatory components. Here we present the construction of a genetic toggle switch—a synthetic, bistable gene-regulatory network—in Escherichia coli and provide a simple theory that predicts the conditions necessary for bistability. The toggle is constructed from any two repressible promoters arranged in a mutually inhibitory network. It is flipped between stable states using transient chemical or thermal induction and exhibits a nearly ideal switching threshold. As a practical device, the toggle switch forms a synthetic, addressable cellular memory unit and has implications for biotechnology, biocomputing and gene therapy.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (74)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35002131 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:403:y:2000:i:6767:d:10.1038_35002131

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35002131

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().