Multiplexed Bacterial Cell-Cell Communication via a Genetically Encoded CRISPRi-Based Multiplexer-Demultiplexer Circuit

Abstract

Living cells can be programmed with genetically encoded circuits to function as sophisticated decision-making devices, and communication among cells can facilitate increasingly complex, population-level computations. In this work, we describe a novel characterization platform for assessing the performance of genetically encoded circuits, and we demonstrate two genetically encoded combinational logic circuits, a multiplexer (MUX) and a demultiplexer (DEMUX), which can be combined to facilitate the communication of multiple independent signals between different strains of living bacterial cells.