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Growth phase dependent transcriptional control devices

We successfully designed, constructed and tested transcriptional control devices for constitutive, stationary phase dependent and exponential phase dependent protein production (A-C). To test and verify function of our three transcriptional control devices, we assembled each control device with the GFP protein generator BBa_E0840 and monitored the fluorescence of E. coli cultures with each device over time. For each device, we plot the change in fluorescence per unit time (normalized GFP synthesis rate) versus the cell density (OD600nm) (D). The constitutive transcriptional control device produced a high GFP synthesis rate irrespective of cell density. The stationary phase transcriptional control device produced a low initial GFP synthesis rate which increased with culture cell density. The exponential phase transcriptional control device produced an initially high GFP synthesis rate which dropped off as cell density increased. Data shown are averages of triplicate measurements of cultures grown from three individual colonies of each device. Error bars are the standard deviation of the three individual cultures.