Date Thesis Awarded

5-2019

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Science (BS)

Department

Interdisciplinary Studies

Advisor

Margaret Saha

Committee Members

Helen Murphy

M. Drew Lamar

Myriam Cotten

Abstract

The core goal of synthetic biology is to obtain predictable and practical control over the various properties and behaviors of biological systems. To enable this control, new synthetic biological methods are expected to be rigorously characterized as well as usable in a broad variety of systems. Commonly, new synthetic biological methods focus on the creation of novel modular genetic parts and genetic parts-based schemes to control or tune various properties of genetic circuits. However, despite the advances that have been made in modular parts-based control over the last twenty years, there are currently few modular parts-based methods that allow the control of dynamic properties of genetic circuits. Here, I seek to ameliorate this issue by developing a modular genetic parts-based method for the control of the dynamic property of genetic circuit response time. Additionally, another current problem of genetic parts is that many genetic parts have had their modularity impaired by genetic context resulting from promoter junction interaction. While there are currently some methods that allow for the ‘insulation’, or prevention of this modularity impairing genetic context, there has been little to no investigation of what if any secondary effects might arise from the use of these methods. To address this, I investigate the secondary effects of the commonly used insulator RiboJ, showing that it potentially compromises modularity by increasing the expression of insulated genes.

Recommended Citation

Jones, Ethan, "Creation and Characterization of Synthetic Biological Tools for Modular Genetic Circuit Design" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 1395.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1395