Synthetic biology aims to engineer and redesign biological systems for useful real-world applications in biomanufacturing, biosensing and biotherapy following a typical design-build-test cycle. Inspired from computer science and electronics, synthetic gene circuits have been designed to exhibit control over the flow of information in biological systems. Two types are Boolean logic inspired TRUE or FALSE digital logic and graded analog computation. Key principles for gene circuit engineering include modularity, orthogonality, predictability and reliability. Initial circuits in the field were small and hampered by a lack of modular and orthogonal components, however in recent years the library of available parts has increased vastly. New tools for high throughput DNA assembly and characterization have been developed enabling rapid prototyping, systematic in situ characterization, as well as automated design and assembly of circuits. Recently implemented computing paradigms in circuit memory and distributed computing using cell consortia will also be discussed. Finally, we will examine existing challenges in building predictable large-scale circuits including modularity, context dependency and metabolic burden as well as tools and methods used to resolve them. These new trends and techniques have the potential to accelerate design of larger gene circuits and result in an increase in our basic understanding of circuit and host behaviour.

中文翻译：

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扩大细胞计算的遗传电路设计：进展和前景。

合成生物学旨在按照典型的设计-构建-测试周期，工程和重新设计生物系统，以实现生物制造、生物传感和生物治疗领域的有用实际应用。受计算机科学和电子学的启发，合成基因电路被设计用来展示对生物系统中信息流的控制。两种类型是布尔逻辑启发的 TRUE 或 FALSE 数字逻辑和分级模拟计算。基因电路工程的关键原则包括模块化、正交性、可预测性和可靠性。该领域最初的电路很小，并且由于缺乏模块化和正交组件而受到阻碍，但近年来，可用部件库已大大增加。用于高通量 DNA 组装和表征的新工具已经开发出来，可实现快速原型制作、系统性原位表征以及电路的自动化设计和组装。还将讨论最近在电路存储器和使用单元联盟的分布式计算中实现的计算范例。最后，我们将研究构建可预测的大规模电路的现有挑战，包括模块化、上下文依赖性和代谢负担，以及用于解决这些问题的工具和方法。这些新趋势和技术有可能加速更大基因电路的设计，并增加我们对电路和宿主行为的基本理解。