rhythms and were not influenced much by temperature were created in a laboratory. Pathologically, the repressilator model can be used to model cell growth and abnormalities that may arise, such as those present in cancer cells. In doing so, new treatments may be developed based on circadian activity of cancerous cells. Additionally, in 2016, a research team improved upon the previous design of the repressilator. Following noise (signal processing) analysis, the authors moved the GFP reporter construct onto the repressilator plasmid and removed the ssrA degradation tags from each repressor protein. This extended the period and improved the regularity of the oscillations of the repressilator. In 2019, a study furthered Elowitz and Leibler's model by improving the repressilator system by achieving a model with a unique steady state and new rate function. This experiment expanded the current knowledge of repression and gene regulation. Significance Synthetic Biology Artificial repressilators were discovered by implanting a synthetic inhibition loop into E. coli. This represented the first implementation of synthetic oscillations into an organism. Further implications of this include the possibility of rescuing mutated components of oscillations synthetically in model organisms. The artificial repressilator is a milestone of synthetic biology which shows that genetic regulatory networks can be designed and implemented to perform novel functions. However, it was found that the cells' oscillations drifted out of phase after a period of time and the artificial repressilator's activity was influenced by cell growth. The initial experiment therefore gave new appreciation to the circadian clock found in many organisms, as endogenous repressilators are significantly more robust than implanted artificial repressilators. New investigations at the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center have found that chemical modifications to a single protein molecule could form a temperature independent, self-sustainable oscillator . Artificial repressilators could potentially aid research and treatments in fields ranging from circadian biology to endocrinology. They are increasingly able to demonstrate the synchronization inherent to natural biological systems and the factors that affect them. Circadian Biology A better understanding of the naturally-occurring repressilator in model organisms with endogenous, circadian timings, like A. thaliana, has applications in agriculture, especially in regards to plant rearing and livestock management. References External links Direct link to the repressilator model and a Description in BioModels Database A simulation of the repressilator in R: https://gist.github.com/AndreyAkinshin/37f3e68a1576f9ea1e5c01f2fd64fe5e An online simulation of the repressilator: https://www.yschaerli.com/repressilator.html A diagram of the system of feedback loops in A. thaliana Direct link