A synthetic mammalian network to compute population borders based on engineered reciprocal cell-cell communication.

Background: Multicellular organisms depend on the exchange of information between specialized cells. This communication is often difficult to decipher in its native context, but synthetic biology provides tools to engineer well-defined systems that allow the convenient study and manipulation of intercellular communication networks.

Results: Here, we present the first mammalian synthetic network for reciprocal cell-cell communication to compute the border between a sender/receiver and a processing cell population.

The deletion of bacterial dynamin and flotillin genes results in pleiotrophic effects on cell division, cell growth and in cell shape maintenance.

Background: In eukaryotic cells, dynamin and flotillin are involved in processes such as endocytosis and lipid raft formation, respectively. Dynamin is a GTPase that exerts motor-like activity during the pinching off of vesicles, while flotillins are coiled coil rich membrane proteins with no known enzymatic activity. Bacteria also possess orthologs of both classes of proteins, but their function has been unclear.