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Cells self-organize molecules in space and time to generate complex behaviors, but we lack synthetic strategies for engineering spatiotemporal signaling. We present a programmable reaction-diffusion platform for designing protein oscillations, patterns, and circuits in mammalian cells using two bacterial proteins, MinD and MinE (MinDE). MinDE circuits act like "single-cell radios," emitting frequency-barcoded fluorescence signals that can be spectrally isolated and analyzed using digital signal processing tools. We define how to genetically program these signals and connect their spatiotemporal dynamics to cell biology using engineerable protein-protein interactions. This enabled us to construct sensitive reporter circuits that broadcast endogenous cell signaling dynamics on a frequency-barcoded imaging channel and to build control signal circuits that synthetically pattern activities in the cell, such as protein condensate assembly and actin filamentation. Our work establishes a paradigm for visualizing, probing, and engineering cellular activities at length and timescales critical for biological function., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests A patent application has been filed by the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation related to this work., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Ras superfamily GTPases represent one of the most prolific signaling currencies used in Eukaryotes. With these remarkable molecules, evolution has built GTPase networks that control diverse cellular processes such as growth, morphology, motility and trafficking. (1-4) Our knowledge of the individual players that underlie the function of these networks is deep; decades of biochemical and structural data has provided a mechanistic understanding of the molecules that turn GTPases ON and OFF, as well as how those GTPase states signal by controlling the assembly of downstream effectors. However, we know less about how these different activities work together as a system to specify complex dynamic signaling outcomes. Decoding this molecular "programming language" would help us understand how different species and cell types have used the same GTPase machinery in different ways to accomplish different tasks, and would also provide new insights as to how mutations to these networks can cause disease. We recently developed a bead-based microscopy assay to watch reconstituted H-Ras signaling systems at work under arbitrary configurations of regulators and effectors. (5) Here we highlight key observations and insights from this study and propose extensions to our method to further study this and other GTPase signaling systems.

The Notch protein is one of the most mechanistically direct transmembrane receptors-the intracellular domain contains a transcriptional regulator that is released from the membrane when engagement of the cognate extracellular ligand induces intramembrane proteolysis. We find that chimeric forms of Notch, in which both the extracellular sensor module and the intracellular transcriptional module are replaced with heterologous protein domains, can serve as a general platform for generating novel cell-cell contact signaling pathways. Synthetic Notch (synNotch) pathways can drive user-defined functional responses in diverse mammalian cell types. Because individual synNotch pathways do not share common signaling intermediates, the pathways are functionally orthogonal. Thus, multiple synNotch receptors can be used in the same cell to achieve combinatorial integration of environmental cues, including Boolean response programs, multi-cellular signaling cascades, and self-organized cellular patterns. SynNotch receptors provide extraordinary flexibility in engineering cells with customized sensing/response behaviors to user-specified extracellular cues., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Ras-superfamily GTPases are central controllers of cell proliferation and morphology. Ras signaling is mediated by a system of interacting molecules: upstream enzymes (GEF/GAP) regulate Ras's ability to recruit multiple competing downstream effectors. We developed a multiplexed, multi-turnover assay for measuring the dynamic signaling behavior of in vitro reconstituted H-Ras signaling systems. By including both upstream regulators and downstream effectors, we can systematically map how different network configurations shape the dynamic system response. The concentration and identity of both upstream and downstream signaling components strongly impacted the timing, duration, shape, and amplitude of effector outputs. The distorted output of oncogenic alleles of Ras was highly dependent on the balance of positive (GAP) and negative (GEF) regulators in the system. We found that different effectors interpreted the same inputs with distinct output dynamics, enabling a Ras system to encode multiple unique temporal outputs in response to a single input. We also found that different Ras-to-GEF positive feedback mechanisms could reshape output dynamics in distinct ways, such as signal amplification or overshoot minimization. Mapping of the space of output behaviors accessible to Ras provides a design manual for programming Ras circuits, and reveals how these systems are readily adapted to produce an array of dynamic signaling behaviors. Nonetheless, this versatility comes with a trade-off of fragility, as there exist numerous paths to altered signaling behaviors that could cause disease.

The Ras-superfamily GTPases are central controllers of cell proliferation and morphology. Ras signaling is mediated by a system of interacting molecules: upstream enzymes (GEF/GAP) regulate Ras's ability to recruit multiple competing downstream effectors. We developed a multiplexed, multi-turnover assay for measuring the dynamic signaling behavior of in vitro reconstituted H-Ras signaling systems. By including both upstream regulators and downstream effectors, we can systematically map how different network configurations shape the dynamic system response. The concentration and identity of both upstream and downstream signaling components strongly impacted the timing, duration, shape, and amplitude of effector outputs. The distorted output of oncogenic alleles of Ras was highly dependent on the balance of positive (GAP) and negative (GEF) regulators in the system. We found that different effectors interpreted the same inputs with distinct output dynamics, enabling a Ras system to encode multiple unique temporal outputs in response to a single input. We also found that different Ras-to-GEF positive feedback mechanisms could reshape output dynamics in distinct ways, such as signal amplification or overshoot minimization. Mapping of the space of output behaviors accessible to Ras provides a design manual for programming Ras circuits, and reveals how these systems are readily adapted to produce an array of dynamic signaling behaviors. Nonetheless, this versatility comes with a trade-off of fragility, as there exist numerous paths to altered signaling behaviors that could cause disease.

Allosteric interactions provide precise spatiotemporal control over signaling proteins, but how allosteric activators and their targets coevolve is poorly understood. Here, we trace the evolution of two allosteric activator motifs within the yeast scaffold protein Ste5 that specifically target the mating MAP kinase Fus3. One activator (Ste5-VWA) provides pathway insulation and dates to the divergence of Fus3 from its paralog, Kss1; a second activator (Ste5-FBD) that tunes mating behavior is, in contrast, not conserved in most lineages. Surprisingly, both Ste5 activator motifs could regulate MAP kinases that diverged from Fus3 prior to the emergence of Ste5, suggesting that Ste5 activators arose by exploiting latent regulatory features already present in the MAPK ancestor. The magnitude of this latent allosteric potential drifts widely among pre-Ste5 MAP kinases, providing a pool of hidden phenotypic diversity that, when revealed by new activators, could lead to functional divergence and to the evolution of distinct signaling behaviors.

The receptor for activated C-kinase (RACK1), a conserved protein implicated in numerous signaling pathways, is a stoichiometric component of eukaryotic ribosomes located on the head of the 40S ribosomal subunit. To test the hypothesis that ribosome association is central to the function of RACK1 in vivo, we determined the 2.1-A crystal structure of RACK1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Asc1p) and used it to design eight mutant versions of RACK1 to assess roles in ribosome binding and in vivo function. Conserved charged amino acids on one side of the beta-propeller structure were found to confer most of the 40S subunit binding affinity, whereas an adjacent conserved and structured loop had little effect on RACK1-ribosome association. Yeast mutations that confer moderate to strong defects in ribosome binding mimic some phenotypes of a RACK1 deletion strain, including increased sensitivity to drugs affecting cell wall biosynthesis and translation elongation. Furthermore, disruption of RACK1's position at the 40S ribosomal subunit results in the failure of the mRNA binding protein Scp160 to associate with actively translating ribosomes. These results provide the first direct evidence that RACK1 functions from the ribosome, implying a physical link between the eukaryotic ribosome and cell signaling pathways in vivo.