Circuits with broken fibration symmetries perform core logic computations in biological networks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that gene regulatory networks perform core logic computations through symmetry-breaking in their structure, revealing a hierarchy of genetic circuits analogous to electronic circuits, with implications for understanding and designing biological computation.

Contribution

It introduces a constructive method linking fibration symmetry breaking to genetic circuit function, providing a systematic approach to identify and design biological computational modules.

Findings

Genetic circuits arise from symmetry-breaking in network structure.

Hierarchical organization of genetic circuits analogous to electronic circuits.

Provides a new framework for designing synthetic biological circuits.

Abstract

We show that logic computational circuits in gene regulatory networks arise from a fibration symmetry breaking in the network structure. From this idea we implement a constructive procedure that reveals a hierarchy of genetic circuits, ubiquitous across species, that are surprising analogues to the emblematic circuits of solid-state electronics: starting from the transistor and progressing to ring oscillators, current-mirror circuits to toggle switches and flip-flops. These canonical variants serve fundamental operations of synchronization and clocks (in their symmetric states) and memory storage (in their broken symmetry states). These conclusions introduce a theoretically principled strategy to search for computational building blocks in biological networks, and present a systematic route to design synthetic biological circuits.