Ongoing efforts within synthetic and systems biology have been directed towards the building of artificial computational devices using engineered biological units as basic building blocks. Such efforts, inspired in the standard design of electronic circuits, are limited by the difficulties arising from wiring the basic computational units (logic gates) through the appropriate connections, each one to be implemented by a different molecule. Here, we show that there is a logically different form of implementing complex Boolean logic computations that reduces wiring constraints thanks to a redundant distribution of the desired output among engineered cells. A practical implementation is presented using a library of engineered yeast cells, which can be combined in multiple ways. Each construct defines a logic function and combining cells and their connections allow building more complex synthetic devices. As a proof of principle, we have implemented many logic functions by using just a few engineered cells. Of note, small modifications and combination of those cells allowed for implementing more complex circuits such as a multiplexer or a 1-bit adder with carry, showing the great potential for re-utilization of small parts of the circuit. Our results support the approach of using cellular consortia as an efficient way of engineering complex tasks not easily solvable using single-cell implementations.

Appropriate regulation of the Hog1 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is essential for cells to survive osmotic stress. Here, we show that the two sensing mechanisms upstream of Hog1 display different signaling properties. The Sho1 branch is an inducible nonbasal system, whereas the Sln1 branch shows high basal signaling that is restricted by a MAPK-mediated feedback mechanism. A two-dimensional mathematical model of the Snl1 branch, including high basal signaling and a Hog1-regulated negative feedback, shows that a system with basal signaling exhibits higher efficiency, with faster response times and higher sensitivity to variations in external signals, than would systems without basal signaling. Analysis of two other yeast MAPK pathways, the Fus3 and Kss1 signaling pathways, indicates that high intrinsic basal signaling may be a general property of MAPK pathways allowing rapid and sensitive responses to environmental changes.

The cAMP-PKA pathway consists of an extracellular ligand-sensitive G protein-coupled receptor, a G protein signal transmitter, and the effector, adenylate cyclase, of which the product, cAMP, acts as an intracellular second messenger. cAMP activates PKA by dissociating the regulatory subunit from the catalytic subunit. Yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) contain a glucose͞sucrose-sensitive seven-transmembrane domain receptor, Gpr1, that was proposed to activate adenylate cyclase through the G␣ protein Gpa2. Consistently, we show here that adenylate cyclase binds only to active, GTP-bound Gpa2. Two related kelch-repeat proteins, Krh1͞ Gpb2 and Krh2͞Gpb1, are associated with Gpa2 and were suggested to act as G␤ mimics for Gpa2, based on their predicted seven-bladed ␤-propeller structure. However, we find that although Krh1 associates with both GDP and GTP-bound Gpa2, it displays a preference for GTP-Gpa2. The strong down-regulation of PKA targets by Krh1 and Krh2 does not require Gpa2 but is strictly dependent on both the catalytic and the regulatory subunits of PKA. Krh1 directly interacts with PKA by means of the catalytic subunits, and Krh1͞2 stimulate the association between the catalytic and regulatory subunits in vivo. Indeed, both a constitutively active GPA2 allele and deletion of KRH1͞2 lower the cAMP requirement of PKA for growth. We propose that active Gpa2 relieves the inhibition imposed by the kelch-repeat proteins on PKA, thereby bypassing adenylate cyclase for direct regulation of PKA. Importantly, we show that Krh1͞2 also enhance the association between mouse R and C subunits, suggesting that Krh control of PKA has been evolutionarily conserved.Saccharomyces cerevisiae ͉ signal transduction ͉ glucose

We combined the high MR signal enhancement achieved using dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) with a pulsed gradient double spin echo diffusion MR sequence to rapidly and accurately measure the diffusion coefficients of various hyperpolarized 13C molecules in solution. Furthermore, with a diffusion-weighted imaging sequence we generate diffusion coefficient maps of multiple hyperpolarized metabolites simultaneously. While hyperpolarized experiments can measure rapid, non-equilibrium processes by avoiding signal averaging, continuous signal loss due to longitudinal relaxation (T1) complicates quantitation. By correcting for this signal loss, we demonstrate the feasibility of using hyperpolarized 13C diffusion weighted MR to accurately measure real-time (seconds) molecular transport phenomena. Potential applications include rapidly measuring molecular binding, cellular membrane transport, in vivo metabolite distribution and establishing a magnetic field independent hyperpolarized parameter.