Team:IIT-Madras/Design


RIBOS

Introduction

In order to make precise and predictable biological devices, which can be controlled at will, we have designed a ribo-regulatory switch and named it RIBOS (RNA Inducible Boolean Output like Switch). RIBOS works on the principle of Watson-Crick base pairing between trigger RNA and switch mRNA. There are two sub-types of RIBOS, RIBOSON and RIBOSOFF, which activates and represses the translation process of downstream protein coding mRNA respectively in the presence of corresponding trigger RNA. The validation and functional optimization of RIBOS switches have been done with the help of 'Nupack' software by taking the thermal stability of RNA secondary structures and various other parameters into account. We have designed RIBOS such that the difference between it's ON and OFF states for both sub-types of switches are large enough to make them reliable in cell environment. Owing to the special designs of RIBOS, the base pairing between trigger and switch can range from 10 nucleotide to around 25 nucleotide, which makes it very orthogonal in principle. RIBOS can be used at the place of RBS parts in our expression systems, which can be controlled by supplying trigger RNA molecules. It's applications range from detection and quantification of mRNA molecules to the design of independent and modular genetic circuits in limitless number using forward engineering. As a deliverable, the algorithm can be used by future iGEM teams to design RIBOSON and RIBOSOFF for any trigger sequence.

RIBOSON

SingleMolDet iGEM16.png

RIBOSOFF

SingleMolDet iGEMRIBOSoff.png

Given below are animations which describe the working of RIBOSON and RIBOSOFF respectively.