Multicellular PD Control in Microbial Consortia

Abstract

We propose a multicellular implementation of a biomolecular PD feedback controller to regulate gene expression in a microbial consortium. The implementation involves distributing the proportional and derivative control actions between two different cellular populations that can communicate with each other and regulate the output of a third target cellular population. We derive analytical conditions on biological parameters and control gains to adjust the systems static and dynamical properties. We then validate the strategys performance and robustness through extensive in silico experiments.