Rational design and tuning of ribozyme-based devices

A synthetic gene-regulatory device platform was described by modularly assembling three RNA components encoding distinct functions of sensing, transmission, and actuation. The molecular binding at the sensor component is translated by the transmitter component through a strand-displacement event to modulate activity of the actuator component, which then interacts with cellular transcriptional machinery to affect gene expression levels. Here, we provide some general guidelines on linking RNA components to construct gene-regulatory devices and strategies to tune device regulatory activities through an RNA folding program for specific cellular applications.