Molecular implementation of simple logic programs

Autonomous programmable computing devices made of biomolecules could interact with a biological environment and be used in future biological and medical applications 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Biomolecular implementations of finite automata 8 , 9 and logic gates 4 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 have already b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNature nanotechnology Vol. 4; no. 10; pp. 642 - 648
Main Authors Shapiro, Ehud, Ran, Tom, Kaplan, Shai
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.10.2009
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
Biomolecules
Chemistry and Materials Science
Computation
Computational Biology
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA - chemistry
letter
Logic
Logic programming
Logic programs
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology and Microengineering
Philosophers
Programmable logic devices
Programming languages
Queries
Representations
Strands
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Summary:Autonomous programmable computing devices made of biomolecules could interact with a biological environment and be used in future biological and medical applications 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Biomolecular implementations of finite automata 8 , 9 and logic gates 4 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 have already been developed 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 . Here, we report an autonomous programmable molecular system based on the manipulation of DNA strands that is capable of performing simple logical deductions. Using molecular representations of facts such as Man ( Socrates ) and rules such as Mortal ( X ) ←  Man ( X ) (Every Man is Mortal), the system can answer molecular queries such as Mortal ( Socrates )? (Is Socrates Mortal?) and Mortal ( X )? (Who is Mortal?). This biomolecular computing system compares favourably with previous approaches in terms of expressive power, performance and precision 2 , 4 , 8 , 9 , 11 , 12 , 19 . A compiler translates facts, rules and queries into their molecular representations and subsequently operates a robotic system that assembles the logical deductions and delivers the result. This prototype is the first simple programming language with a molecular-scale implementation. DNA strands can be used to build an autonomous programmable molecular system that is capable of performing simple logical deductions.
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ISSN:1748-3387
1748-3395
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2009.203