Logic gates and elementary computing by enzymes.

Different selected enzymes, glucose oxidase (GOx), catalase (Cat), glucose dehydrogenase (GDH), horseradish peroxidase (HRP), and formaldehyde dehydrogenase (FDH), are used alone or coupled to construct eight different logic gates. The added substrates for the respective enzymes, glucose and H(2)O(2), act as the gate inputs, while the biocatalytically generated gluconic acid or NADH are the output signals that follow the operation of the gates. Different enzyme-based gates are XOR, INHIBIT A, INHIBIT B, AND, OR, NOR, Identity and Inverter gates. By combining the AND and XOR or the XOR and INHIBIT A gates, the half-adder and half-subtractor are constructed, respectively, opening the way to elementary computing by the use of enzymes.