Search results for "Artificial cell"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
Signal-Processing and Adaptive Prototissue Formation in Metabolic DNA Protocells
2021
Abstract The fundamental life-defining processes in living cells, such as replication, division, adaptation, and tissue formation, take place via intertwined metabolic reaction networks orchestrating downstream signal processing in a confined, crowded environment with high precision. Hence, it is crucial to understand and reenact some of these functions in wholly synthetic cell-like entities (protocells) to envision designing soft-materials with life-like traits. Herein, we report on a programmable all-DNA protocell (PC) composed of a liquid DNA interior and a hydrogel-like shell, harboring DNAzyme active sites in the interior whose catalytic bond-cleaving activity leads to a downstream phe…
Strategies for Making Life
2014
Synthetic biology is a multifaceted discipline and the pathways towards an artificial cell are diverse. Top-down strategies seek simplification of genomes, their chemical synthesis and transplantation into a cell chassis. In the long term, scientists hope to have genomic platforms to reinvent metabolic networks capable of producing molecules of biotechnological interest. On the other hand, a bottom-up strategy relies on the chemical implementation of fundamental concepts such as self-reproduction, self-replication and self-maintaining systems. In addition to the artificial synthesis of simplified genomes and protocells, some scientists explore xenobiology, or making life as we do not know i…
Synthetic Biology in Action
2014
Last decade has witnessed remarkable advances towards the engineering of life. The examples range from the design of an efficient cellular factory for the semi-synthesis of the antimalarial drug artemisinin, to the chemical synthesis of chromosomes, both bacterial and eukaryotic. In parallel, advances in the deep characterization of cell machineries in the simplest cells show that we are very far of fully understanding the regulation of metabolic and genetic circuits. Biological emergent properties and noise may suppose an obstacle for predictive design. Besides the obvious biotechnological benefits of synthetic biology, the path towards the artificial cell will report new insights on the e…