Autonomous Cell-State Sensing Device (Yeda)
A simple system for diagnosing the state of a cell.
The state of a cell can be diagnosed by monitoring the activity patterns of its various pathways. In most cases it is essential to monitor the activity of several genes in order to accurately determine a cell state. Ex vivo techniques allow identification of cell states not by the cell itself, but rather by external observation, and schemes for in vitro autonomous diagnosis are yet to be implemented in living cells. Therefore, a general synthetic approach for diagnosing natural cell states is needed. In the outlined technology the state of a cell is diagnosed internally by the cell itself, using a simple genetic system that measures the integrated activity of a few pre-defined genes. The state of a cell is defined by its phenotypic and genotypic properties. It can be diagnosed by the unique activity pattern associated with that state. The current technology offers an autonomous cell-state determination in yeast, by defining a minimal set of genes, whose concurrent activity pattern provides precise identification of the state of interest. The integrated readout is obtained by coupling the activity of the input genes. The products of these two genes are used to drive the expression of a reporter or effector gene.
Detection of a cell's state is autonomous, without external intervention
The systems sensitivity is adjustable to detect states with limited dynamic range of inputs
The systems output depends only on the activity of input pathways, not on their identity, i.e. it can be used to diagnose any pair of input pathways
Identification of aberrant versus normal growth of cells
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