An important goal for synthetic biology is to build robust and tunable genetic regulatory networks that are capable of performing assigned operations, usually in the presence of noise. In this work, a synthetic gene network derived from the bacteriophage $\lambda$ underpins a reconfigurable logic gate wherein we exploit noise and nonlinearity through the application of the logical stochastic resonance paradigm. This biological logic gate can emulate or “morph” the AND and OR operations through varying internal system parameters in a noisy background. Such genetic circuits can afford intriguing possibilities in the realization of engineered genetic networks in which the actual function of the gate can be changed after the network has been built, via an external control parameter. In this article, the full system characterization is reported, with the logic gate performance studied in the presence of external and internal noise. The robustness of the gate, to noise, is studied and illustrated through numerical simulations.

• Received 26 May 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.83.041909