Abstract: |
Powerful distributed computing can be achieved by communicating cells that individually perform simple operations. We have developed design software to divide a large genetic circuit across cells as well as the genetic parts to implement the subcircuits in their genomes. These tools were demonstrated by re-coding a 2-bit version of the MD5 hashing algorithm, an early predecessor to the cryptographic functions underlying cryptocurrency. Implementation required 110 logic gates, which were partitioned across 65 strains of Escherichia coli, requiring the introduction of a total of 0.66 Mb of recombinant DNA into their genomes. The strains are experimentally verified to integrate their assigned input signals, process this information correctly, and propagate the result to the cell in the next layer. This work demonstrates the potential computational capacity cell populations, whether it is to obtain programmable control of biological processes or to implement highly parallelized solutions to computational problems. |