Decreasing the stochasticity of mammalian gene expression by a synthetic gene circuit*

Gene therapy and functional genetic studies usually require precisely controlled and uniform gene expression in a population of cells for reliable level of protein production. Due to this requirement, stochastic gene expression is perceived as undesirable in these fields and ideally has to be minimized. The number of approaches for decreasing gene expression stochasticity in mammalian cells is limited. This creates an unmet need to develop new gene expression systems for this purpose. Based on earlier synthetic constructs in yeast, we developed and assessed a negative feedback-based mammalian gene circuit, with uniform and low level of stochasticity in gene expression at different levels of induction. In addition, this new synthetic construct enables highly precise gene expression control in mammalian cells, due to the linear dependence of gene expression on the inducer concentration applied to the system. This mammalian gene expression circuit has potential applicability for the development of new treatment modalities in gene therapy and research tools in functional genetics. In addition, this work creates a roadmap for moving synthetic gene circuits from microbes into mammalian cells.