Enzymatic Computing

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Description/Abstract

The conformational dynamics of enzymes is a computational resource that fuses milieu signals in a nonlinear fashion. Response surface methodology can be used to elicit computational functionality from enzyme dynamics. We constructed a tabletop prototype to implement enzymatic signal processing in a device context and employed it in conjunction with malate dehydrogenase to perform the linearly inseparable exclusive-or operation. This shows that proteins can execute signal processing operations that are more complex than those performed by individual threshold elements. We view the experiments reported, though restricted to the two-variable case, as a stepping stone to computational networks that utilize the precise reproduc- ibility of proteins, and the concomitant reproducibility of their nonlinear dynamics, to implement complex pattern transformations.