Dynamics of Growth and Form in Prebiotic Vesicles

Ruiz-Herrero, Teresa; Fai, Thomas G.; Mahadevan, L.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.123.038102

Cited by 24 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Filamentous growth was 197 notable, in particular, given the lack of a cell wall or bacterial cytoskeletal elements to generate and stabilize these cellular forms. While some filaments exhibited branching or pearling, we did not observe scission, consistent with the presence of an energy barrier (Beltrán-Heredia et al, 2017;Caspi and Dekker, 2014;Ruiz-Herrero et al, 2019).…”

Section: Morphological Dynamics Intrinsic To Cells Revealed By Microfluidic Chemostatssupporting

confidence: 88%

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Pelletier

Sun

Wise

et al. 2021

Cell

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Genomically minimal cells, such as JCVI-syn3.0, offer a platform to clarify genes underlying core physiological processes. While this minimal cell includes genes essential for population growth, the physiology of its single cells remained uncharacterized. To investigate striking morphological variation in JCVI-syn3.0 cells, we present an approach to characterize cell propagation and determine genes affecting cell morphology.Microfluidic chemostats allowed observation of intrinsic cell dynamics resulting in irregular morphologies. The addition of 19 genes not retained in JCVI-syn3.0 generated JCVI-syn3A, which presents significantly less morphological variation than JCVI-syn3.0.We further identified seven of these 19 genes, including two known cell division genes ftsZ and sepF and five genes of unknown function, required together to restore cell morphology and division similar to JCVI-syn1.0. This surprising result emphasizes the polygenic nature of cell morphology, as well as the importance of a Z-ring and membrane properties in the physiology of genomically minimal cells.105 and is also made available for use under a CC0 license.

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Section: Morphological Dynamics Intrinsic To Cells Revealed By Microfluidic Chemostatssupporting

confidence: 88%

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Pelletier

Sun

Wise

et al. 2021

Cell

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show abstract

“…Filamentous growth was notable, in particular, given the lack of a cell wall or bacterial cytoskeletal elements to generate and stabilize these cellular forms. While some filaments exhibited branching or pearling, we did not observe scission, consistent with the presence of an energy barrier (Beltrán-Heredia et al, 2017;Caspi and Dekker, 2014;Ruiz-Herrero et al, 2019).…”

Section: Morphological Dynamics Intrinsic To Cells Revealed By Microfsupporting

confidence: 88%

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Pelletier

Sun

Wise

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Genomically minimal cells, such as JCVI-syn3.0, offer a platform to clarify genes underlying core physiological processes. While this minimal cell includes genes essential for population growth, the physiology of its single cells remained uncharacterized. To investigate striking morphological variation in JCVI-syn3.0 cells, we present an approach to characterize cell propagation and determine genes affecting cell morphology. Microfluidic chemostats allowed observation of intrinsic cell dynamics resulting in irregular morphologies. The addition of 19 genes not retained in JCVI-syn3.0 generated JCVI-syn3A, which presents significantly less morphological variation than JCVI-syn3.0. We further identified seven of these 19 genes, including two known cell division genes ftsZ and sepF and five genes of unknown function, required together to restore cell morphology and division similar to JCVI-syn1.0. This surprising result emphasizes the polygenic nature of cell morphology, as well as the importance of a Z-ring and membrane properties in the physiology of genomically minimal cells.

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“… 45 , 46 The resulting lobes and protrusions are intrinsically unstable, since these structures deviate from the thermodynamically favorable spheroid form, ultimately leading to division. 47 , 48 When the buffer (HEPES), which crosses the membrane slowly, was replaced with the much more permeable ammonium acetate, 20 we still observed shape changes, albeit to a lesser extent ( Figure S10 ). These results suggest that the rate of membrane growth in our system could still outpace volume growth when the lipid tails differed by four carbon units, highlighting how small, subtle differences in molecular structure can lead to large changes at the population level.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Population-Level Membrane Diversity Triggers Growth and Division of Protocells

Toparlak

Wang

Mansy

2021

JACS Au

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To date, multiple mechanisms have been described for the growth and division of model protocells, all of which exploit the lipid dynamics of fatty acids. In some examples, the more heterogeneous aggregate consisting of fatty acid and diacyl phospholipid or fatty acid and peptide grows at the expense of the more homogeneous aggregate containing a restricted set of lipids with similar dynamics. Imbalances between surface area and volume during growth can generate filamentous vesicles, which are typically divided by shear forces. Here, we describe another pathway for growth and division that depends simply on differences in the compositions of fatty acid membranes without additional components. Growth is driven by the thermodynamically favorable mixing of lipids between two populations, i.e., the system as a whole proceeds toward equilibrium. Division is the result of growth-induced curvature. Importantly, growth and division do not require a specific composition of lipids. For example, vesicles made from one type of lipid, e.g., short-chain fatty acids, grow and divide when fed with vesicles consisting of another type of lipid, e.g., long-chain fatty acids, and vice versa. After equilibration, additional rounds of growth and division could potentially proceed by the introduction of compositionally distinct aggregates. Since prebiotic synthesis likely gave rise to mixtures of lipids, the data are consistent with the presence of growing and dividing protocells on the prebiotic Earth.

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Dynamics of Growth and Form in Prebiotic Vesicles

Cited by 24 publications

References 50 publications

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Genetic requirements for cell division in a genomically minimal cell

Population-Level Membrane Diversity Triggers Growth and Division of Protocells

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