Membrane-mediated transport in a non-equilibrium hybrid protocell based on coacervate droplets and a surfactant

Chang, Haojing; Jing, Hairong; Yin, Yudan; Zhang, Qiufen; Liang, Dehai

doi:10.1039/c8cc08337a

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Controlling molecular transport in artificial cells is challenging due to the complexity of cells. Liang and co‐workers reported the neutral, cationic, and anionic molecules transport through a nonequilibrium artificial cell . For synthesis and expression of proteins under the condition of no living cell, Ces and co‐workers reported the use of multicompartmental vesicles as chassis for artificial cells and the successful synthesis of protein in this bioreactor .…”

Section: Applications Of Fabricated Artificial Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Liang and co-workers reported the neutral, cationic, and anionic molecules transport through a nonequilibrium artificial cell. [242] For synthesis and expression of proteins under the condition of no living cell, Ces and co-workers Small 2020, 16,1903940 reported the use of multicompartmental vesicles as chassis for artificial cells and the successful synthesis of protein in this bioreactor. [243] As to realize cell functions of communication, transportation, and metabolism, the fabrication of transmembrane proteins are highly significant.…”

Section: Artificial Cells Act As Biomimetic Structure For Cells' Funcmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Microfluidics for Biosynthesizing: from Droplets and Vesicles to Artificial Cells

Xie

Xiong

et al. 2019

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Fabrication of artificial biomimetic materials has attracted abundant attention. As one of the subcategories of biomimetic materials, artificial cells are highly significant for multiple disciplines and their synthesis has been intensively pursued. In order to manufacture robust “alive” artificial cells with high throughput, easy operation, and precise control, flexible microfluidic techniques are widely utilized. Herein, recent advances in microfluidic‐based methods for the synthesis of droplets, vesicles, and artificial cells are summarized. First, the advances of droplet fabrication and manipulation on the T‐junction, flow‐focusing, and coflowing microfluidic devices are discussed. Then, the formation of unicompartmental and multicompartmental vesicles based on microfluidics are summarized. Furthermore, the engineering of droplet‐based and vesicle‐based artificial cells by microfluidics is also reviewed. Moreover, the artificial cells applied for imitating cell behavior and acting as bioreactors for synthetic biology are highlighted. Finally, the current challenges and future trends in microfluidic‐based artificial cells are discussed. This review should be helpful for researchers in the fields of microfluidics, biomaterial fabrication, and synthetic biology.

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Section: Applications Of Fabricated Artificial Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Artificial Cells Act As Biomimetic Structure For Cells' Funcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfluidics for Biosynthesizing: from Droplets and Vesicles to Artificial Cells

Xie

Xiong

et al. 2019

Small

117

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“…[245] External stimuli, such as UV and electric field, are engineered to investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of coacervate droplets. [235,[246][247][248][249] Since the pioneer works of assembling aqueous two-phase droplets into lipid vesicles, [250][251][252] there also have been many attempts to encapsulate coacervate droplets in vesicles to further enhance their stability via electrostatic interactions between the membrane lipid and macromolecules in the coacervate (Figure 7c). [233,[253][254][255][256] These lipid membrane-coated coacervate droplets serve as advanced models for both cellular membranes and membraneless organelles.…”

Section: Membraneless Coacervated Dropletsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[309] Additionally, the electric field also has potentially important impact on the behavior of synthetic membraneless coacervates. [246][247][248][249] Coacervates are resultant from electrostatic interactions of polyanions and polycations, such as nuclei acids. Applying electric field can induce complex and rich out-of-equilibrium phenomena, such as vacuolization, spontaneous splitting and circulations, which could be manipulated to regulate enzymatic reactions.…”

Section: Fusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interface Engineering in Multiphase Systems toward Synthetic Cells and Organelles: From Soft Matter Fundamentals to Biomedical Applications

et al. 2020

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products of evolution over billions of years. They are featured by multiple hierarchical compartments performing specialized and exquisitely coordinated functions. The biological and genetic complexity of cells and subcellular components make understanding their physicochemical foundation piece by piece challenging. [1-5] Moreover, the mystery of how the very first cell, protocell, comes into exist in early earth scenario is unveiled yet. [6] Motivated by understanding protocell and biological cells, synthetic cells are being constructed. Started form the simplest form, aqueous droplet enclosed by a bilayer structure, researchers adopt a bottom-up approach to study machineries of biological cells, and explore possible forms of the protocell in early world conditions. [7] Synthetic cells are important to bridge the gap between cellular organism and nonliving matter. They refer to synthetic compartments that encapsulate a wide variety of molecules and mimic one or multiple cellular functions. By segregation of contents in different compartments, synthetic cells are now engineered to perform multiple processes and functions, including segregating genetic information, genetic circuits, protein synthesis, metabolism, growth, reproduce, recognition, intercellular crosstalk, and adaptivity to surroundings. [8-17] In these simplified cell models, cellular processes and signal pathways are reconstituted, providing insights for cell biology and offering new opportunities for designing smart cell-like carriers of therapeutics. [18-26] In addition, the hypothesis of "RNA world" has inspired the investigation of synthetic compartments as protocells, in which nucleotide permeation, compartmental division, the synthesis of macromolecular polynucleotide, and the polymerization of ribonucleic acids (RNA) are explored. [7,27,28] The beginning of synthesizing cell-like structures starts from amphiphiles self-assembled at liquid/liquid interfaces to form enclosed compartments. [29-32] Recently, techniques such as microfluidics facilitate the fabrication of complex compartments with high-order hierarchy with excellent control. [33-36] Formulations of compartmentalization can be diverse, there are reviews mainly focused on one particular type of synthetic compartments, such as lipid vesicles (liposomes), [22,30,37,38] polymer vesicles (polymersomes), [39-43] lipid-polymer hybrid Synthetic cells have a major role in gaining insight into the complex biological processes of living cells; they also give rise to a range of emerging applications from gene delivery to enzymatic nanoreactors. Living cells rely on compartmentalization to orchestrate reaction networks for specialized and coordinated functions. Principally, the compartmentalization has been an essential engineering theme in constructing cell-mimicking systems. Here, efforts to engineer liquid-liquid interfaces of multiphase systems into membrane-bounded and membraneless compartments, which include lipid vesicles, polymer vesicles, colloidosomes, hybrids, and coacervate droplets,...

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“…Complex coacervate systems composed of ionic, non‐ionic and zwitterionic surfactants are reported in aqueous medium . Lower pre‐concentration factor of the neat non‐ionic surfactant and non‐ionic/ionic surfactant mixture based coacervates for the charged organic solutes limit their application potential . Ionic surfactants due to their ionic character provides higher binding sites and so exhibited higher sequestration ability .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sodium Salicylate Mediated Ionic Liquid Based Catanionic Coacervates as Membrane‐Free Microreactors for the Selective Sequestration of Dyes and Curcumin

et al. 2019

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Designing artificial protocells to sequester the biomolecules within its compartments is a challenging task and can be achieved through the use of surfactant-based coacervates. Surfactant structures could be tailored to achieve the highest sequestration through coacervate droplets, irrespective of the polarity, charge and type of the analytes. Herein, we designed a morpholinium-based ester-functionalized ionic-liquid-based surfactant (ILBS) with a higher surface activity than its analogous conventional surfactant to form complex catanionic coacervates over the broad range of sodium salicylate (NaSal) concentrations. The spherically shaped micellar aggregates of the investigated ILBS are transformed into cylindrical shapes and again in the spherically shaped micellar aggregates depending on the NaSal concentration, which forms the coacervate droplets. The complex catanionic coacervates have been studied for their stability in the presence of mono and divalent cations, pH, temperature, viscosity and with respect to time. The microfluidic channel of 100 μm internal diameter was designed to obtain coacervate droplets with a maximum size of 100 μm. The coacervates were designed based on the NaSal concentration; cationic, neutral and anionic to exhibit selective and non-selective encapsulation of the model charged dyes. We speculate that the strategically designed coacervate droplets could mimic membrane-free protocells, which are applicable in multiple biomimetic operations.[a] A.

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Membrane-mediated transport in a non-equilibrium hybrid protocell based on coacervate droplets and a surfactant

Abstract: Each molecule follows a specific pathway to be internalized and generates different distributions in a protocell under non-equilibrium conditions.

Cited by 23 publications

References 41 publications

Microfluidics for Biosynthesizing: from Droplets and Vesicles to Artificial Cells

Microfluidics for Biosynthesizing: from Droplets and Vesicles to Artificial Cells

Interface Engineering in Multiphase Systems toward Synthetic Cells and Organelles: From Soft Matter Fundamentals to Biomedical Applications

Sodium Salicylate Mediated Ionic Liquid Based Catanionic Coacervates as Membrane‐Free Microreactors for the Selective Sequestration of Dyes and Curcumin

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