Renewable Time‐Responsive DNA Circuits

TLDR

DNA devices can implement Boolean logic, but existing circuits are either use‑once or require large gate reservoirs, and they struggle with asynchronous inputs, limiting their reusability and responsiveness. This study aims to introduce renewable DNA circuits that can be reset by adding strands and time‑responsive circuits that recompute outputs when inputs change after reset. The authors achieve this by designing circuits that can be manually reverted to their original state via strand addition and that recompute outputs correctly when new inputs are added after a reset, enabling multiple computation cycles.

Abstract

Abstract DNA devices have been shown to be capable of evaluating Boolean logic. Several robust designs for DNA circuits have been demonstrated. Some prior DNA‐based circuits are use‐once circuits since the gate motifs of the DNA circuits get permanently destroyed as a side effect of the computation, and hence cannot respond correctly to subsequent changes in inputs. Other DNA‐based circuits use a large reservoir of buffered gates to replace the working gates of the circuit and can be used to drive a finite number of computation cycles. In many applications of DNA circuits, the inputs are inherently asynchronous, and this necessitates that the DNA circuits be asynchronous: the output must always be correct regardless of differences in the arrival time of inputs. This paper demonstrates: 1) renewable DNA circuits, which can be manually reverted to their original state by addition of DNA strands, and 2) time‐responsive DNA circuits, where if the inputs change over time, the DNA circuit can recompute the output correctly based on the new inputs, that are manually added after the system has been reset. The properties of renewable, asynchronous, and time‐responsiveness appear to be central to molecular‐scale systems; for example, self‐regulation in cellular organisms.