Vidiella Rocamora, BlaiGuillamon i Grabolosa, AntoniSardanyés i Cayuela, JosepMaull, VictorPla, JordiConde Pueyo, Núria, 1983-Solé Vicente, Ricard, 1962-2021-08-062021-08-062021Vidiella B, Guillamon A, Sardanyés J, Maull V, Pla J, Conde N, Solé R. Engineering self-organized criticality in living cells. Nat Commun. 2021;12(1):4415. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24695-42041-1723http://hdl.handle.net/10230/48320Complex dynamical fluctuations, from intracellular noise, brain dynamics or computer traffic display bursting dynamics consistent with a critical state between order and disorder. Living close to the critical point has adaptive advantages and it has been conjectured that evolution could select these critical states. Is this the case of living cells? A system can poise itself close to the critical point by means of the so-called self-organized criticality (SOC). In this paper we present an engineered gene network displaying SOC behaviour. This is achieved by exploiting the saturation of the proteolytic degradation machinery in E. coli cells by means of a negative feedback loop that reduces congestion. Our critical motif is built from a two-gene circuit, where SOC can be successfully implemented. The potential implications for both cellular dynamics and behaviour are discussed.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24695-4CriticalityGenetic circuit engineeringinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess