An Introduction to BioBricks

BioBricks are a set of interchangable components, designed with a view to building biological systems in living cells. The picture to the left shows BioBrick BBa_0034 within a plasmid. The yellow arrow represents the antibiotic resistance gene and the green arrow, the plasmid's origin of replication.

A BioBrick represents a unique sequence of DNA; it might be a gene that codes a protein or a switch triggered by an external input, it also has a unique name. Whatever its function, a biobrick comes packaged in a plasmid, ready to be assembled into useful devices & systems.

Building BioBrick Systems

Physical parts in the DNA Repository have been designed to be assembled into systems using normal cloning techniques based on restriction enzymes, purification, ligation, and transformation - with a twist: BioBrick parts are composable. The result of assembling two parts is a new part that may be used in future assemblies.

Standard Assembly

The classical method of BioBrick assembly, done at the lab bench.

Insert pic of std assembly

Automated Assembly

Automated assembly, currently in late stage development at iGEM labs.

Insert pic of auto assembly

How do I make a BioBrick?

At the bench

Pic of biobrick flanked by coding seq

Methods:

• Synthesis
• PCR

More information on putting sequence into standardized Biobrick form can be found here

Adding the part to the registry

This protocol is quick and easy. A comprehensive guide can be found here