One of the main advances brought about by the advent of synthetic biology isthe design of artificial gene regulation networks that mimic the behavior ofnatural ones. This simplifies the analysis of cell behavior by isolating therelevant network motifs in a modular way. Consequently they can be studiedindependently of other complex cellular processes that in the natural caseinterfere with the motif of interest. This has been the main motivationbehind the design of certain synthetic gene networks, such as oscillatorsand switches. In spite of their advantages, experimental studies of thesesynthetic systems are still difficult, owing both to the inherent complexityof molecular biology experiments and to our lack of knowledge of the kineticparameters of the specific network components. Here we present a differentmodeling approach that makes sense in the context of electrical andelectronic engineering. Genetic and electronic circuits share many aspectsthat can be interesting for the design and the analysis of syntheticnetworks.

Introduction

The climax of the genome project, of which the most notable success has beenthe complete sequencing of the human genome, is the knowledge of all thegenes that compose the genetic material of an organism. The second phase ofthe project consists of the identification of its functional elements, whichis the aim of the ENCODE project [1].