The repressilator is a genetic regulatory network consisting of at least one feedback loop with at least three genes, each expressing a protein that represses the next gene in the loop. In biological research, repressilators have been used to build cellular models and understand cell function. There are both artificial and naturally occurring repressilators. Recently, the naturally occurring repressilator clock gene circuit in Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana) and mammalian systems have been studied.
Artificial Repressilators Artificial repressilators were first engineered by Michael Elowitz and Stanislas Leibler in 2000, complementing other research projects studying simple systems of cell components and function. In order to understand and model the design and cellular mechanisms that confers a cell's function, Elowitz and Leibler created an artificial network consisting of a loop with three transcriptional repressors. This network was designed from scratch to exhibit a stable oscillation that acts like an electrical oscillator system with fixed time periods. The network was implemented in Escherichia coli (E. coli) via recombinant DNA transfer. It was then verified that the engineered colonies did indeed exhibit the desired oscillatory behavior. The repressilator consists of three genes connected in a feedback loop, such that each gene represses the next gene in the loop and is repressed by the previous gene. In the synthetic insertion into E. coli, green fluorescent protein (GFP) was used as a reporter so that the behavior of the network could be observed using fluorescence microscopy.
The design of the repressilator was guided by biological and circuit principles with discrete and stochastic models of analysis. Six differential equations were used to model the kinetics of the repressilator system based on protein and mRNA concentrations, as well as appropriate parameter and Hill coefficient values. In the study, Elowitz and Leibler generated figures showing oscillations of repressor proteins, using integration and typical parameter values as well as a stochastic version of the repressilator model using similar parameters. These models were analyzed to determine the values of various rates that would yield a sustained oscillation. It was found that these oscillations were favored by promoters coupled to efficient ribosome binding sites, cooperative transcriptional repressors, and comparable protein and mRNA decay rates. This analysis motivated two design features which were engineered into the genes. First, promoter regions were replaced with a more efficient hybrid promoter which combined the E. coli phage lambda PL (λ PL) promoter with lac repressor (Lacl) and Tet repressor (TetR) operator sequences. Second, to reduce the disparity between the lifetimes of the repressor proteins and the mRNAs, a carboxy terminal tag based on the ssrA-RNA sequence was added at the 3' end of each repressor gene. This tag is recognized by proteases which target the protein for degradation. The design was implemented using a low-copy plasmid encoding the repressilator and a higher-copy reporter, which were used to transform a culture of E. coli.
Naturally Occurring Repressilators
Plants Circadian circuits in plants feature a transcriptional regulatory feedback loop called the repressilator. In the core oscillator loop (outlined in gray) in A. thaliana, light is first sensed by two cryptochromes and five phytochromes. Two transcription factors, Circadian Clock Associated 1 (CCA1) and Late Elongated Hypocotyl (LHY), repress genes associated with evening expression like Timing of CAB expression 1 (TOC1) and activate genes associated with morning expression by binding to their promoters. TOC1, an evening gene, positively regulates CCA1 and LHY via an unknown mechanism. Evening-phased transcription factor CCA1 Hiking Expedition (CHE) and histone demethylase jumonji C domain-containing 5 (JMJD5) directly repress CCA1. Other components have been found to be expressed throughout the day and either directly or indirectly inhibit or activate a consequent element in the circadian circuit, thereby creating a complex, robust and flexible network of feedback loops.
Morning-Phase Expression The morning-phase expression loop refers to the genes and proteins that regulate rhythms during the day in A. thaliana. The two main genes are LHY and CCA1, which encode LHY and CCA1 transcription factors. These proteins form heterodimers that enter the nucleus and bind to the TOC1 gene promoter, repressing the production of TOC1 protein. When TOC1 protein is expressed, it serves to regulate LHY and CCA1 by inhibition of their transcription. This was later supported in 2012 by Dr. Alexandra Pokhilo, who used computational analyses to show that TOC1 served this role as an inhibitor of LHY and CCA1 expression. The morning loop serves to inhibit hypocotyl elongation, in contrast with the evening-phase loop which promotes hypocotyl elongation. The morning phase loop has shown to be incapable of supporting circadian oscillation when evening-phase expression genes have been mutated, suggesting the interdependency of each component in this naturally occurring repressilator.
Evening-Phase Expression Early Flowering 3 (ELF3), Early Flowering 4 (ELF4) and Phytoclock1 (LUX) are the key elements in evening-phased clock gene expression in A. thaliana. They form the evening complex, in which LUX binds to the promoters of Phytochrome Interacting Factor 4 (PIF4) and Phytochrome Interacting Factor 5 (PIF5) and inhibits them. As a result, hypocotyl elongation is repressed in the early-evening. When the inhibition is alleviated late at night, the hypocotyl elongates. Photoperiod flowering is controlled by output gene Gigantea (GI). GI is activated at night and activates the expression of Constans (CO), which activates the expression of Flowering Locus T (FT). FT then causes flowering in long-days.
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