CREation of an expanded plant memory gene circuit toolkit

Abstract

Genetic circuits rely on modular, well-characterized genetic parts to achieve predictable cellular behaviour. Despite their widespread adoption, biological parts are complex and when used in a new molecular context can result in unexpected outcomes. Site-specific recombinases have been widely used due to their unique ability to induce precise, irreversible changes to a DNA sequence, making them ideal tools for memory logic operations. However, unexpected context-specific failures of even the most widely used recombinase, Cre, has limited the expansion and complexity of synthetic gene circuits in diverse species. Here, through a systematic analysis of Cre failure in plant gene circuits, we uncovered multiple unexpected post-recombination interactions within the transcriptional unit between the promoter region, recombinase, and their cognate recognition sites. These significantly inhibit transcriptional activity, preventing circuit functionality. Specifically, post-recombination Cre recombinase exhibits an inhibitory property by binding to lox sites, with the remaining lox site repressing transcription. By thoroughly characterizing these dynamics, we restored Cre functionality and expanded the plant-based recombinase toolkit for Cre-related recombinases, developing combinations of recombinases and cognate sites with different activation levels for constructing logic gates with stable memory functions. We further developed multiple functional split-recombinase systems for simultaneous logic using a range of dimerization domains and constructed complex logic gates, including 3-input and 6-input AND gates. Together, this exploration of component context dependency in genetic circuits, even with commonly used parts like the Cre/lox system, has implications extending beyond plant systems, and significantly expands plant memory circuit capabilities.