Engineered Cell–Cell Communication and Its Applications Stephen Payne and Lingchong You Abstract Over the past several decades, biologists have become more apprecia- tive of the fundamental role of intercellular communication in natural systems spanning prokaryotic biofilms to eukaryotic developmental systems and neuro- logical networks. From an engineering perspective, the use of cell–cell commu- nication provides an opportunity to engineer more complex and robust functions using cellular components. Indeed, this strategy has been adopted in synthetic biology in the creation of diverse gene circuits that program spatiotemporal dynamics in one or multiple populations. Gene circuits such as these may offer insights regarding basic biological questions and motifs or serve as a basis for novel applications. Contents 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 2 Quorum Sensing ...................................................................................................................... 3 Using Engineered Cell–Cell Communication to Understand Natural Biological Phenomena ............................................................................................................................... 3.1 Ecology ........................................................................................................................... 3.2 Evolution ......................................................................................................................... 4 Applications of Cell–Cell Communication in Pattern Formation ......................................... 5 Applications of Cell–Cell Communication in Biocomputation and Bioengineering ........... 5.1 Biocomputation ............................................................................................................... 5.2 Bioengineering ................................................................................................................ S. Payne Á L. You Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA L. You Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA L. You Center for Systems Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA L. You (&) CIEMAS 2355, 101 Science Drive, Box 3382 Durham, NC 27708, USA e-mail: you@duke.edu Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol DOI: 10.1007/10_2013_249 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013