Search results for "Molecular confinement"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Printing Biology for Advanced Synthetic Biosystem
2019
Printing technologies represent a powerful tool for the direct micro- and nano- fabrication of biomolecular structures at the interface between life and materials sciences (Arrabito et al., 2012). Their continuous development over the last years has permitted the onset of man-made biosystems with customizable dimensions (from the micron-scale down to the nanometer scale), composition (organic molecules, DNA, proteins, phospholipids), and relevant functions (molecular interactions, drug screening, cellular biointerfaces, cell-like compartments). In this work, we show the possibility to leverage the fabrication of a wide class of solid-supported or liquid-liquid based synthetic compartments b…
Autonomous molecularly crowded confinement in inkjet printed femtoliter-scale aqueous compartments
2019
Natural evolution has chosen the localization of biomolecular processes into crowded sub-cellular femtoliter (fL) scale compartments for organizing complex biological processes. [1] Many synthetic biology platforms with life-like activities have been able to mimic these systems under different compartment sizes regimes. [2] However, the fabrication of crowded compartments down to sub-cellular scales is challenging, mainly because of high surface-volume ratio of these systems, finally compromising the stability of the encapsulated biomolecules. In this regard, we here bridge this gap by showing the possibility to produce femtoliter-scale aqueous droplets using a novel inkjet printing approac…
Printing Life-Inspired Subcellular Scale Compartments with Autonomous Molecularly Crowded Confinement.
2019
A simple, rapid, and highly controlled platform to prepare life-inspired subcellular scale compartments by inkjet printing has been developed. These compartments consist of fL-scale aqueous droplets (few µm in diameter) incorporating biologically relevant molecular entities with programmed composition and concentration. These droplets are ink-jetted in nL mineral oil drop arrays allowing for lab-on-chip studies by fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence life time imaging. Once formed, fL-droplets are stable for several hours, thus giving the possibility of readily analyze molecular reactions and their kinetics and to verify molecular behavior and intermolecular interactions. Here, this pla…
Molecular Confinement in Femtoliter scale aqueous Compartments
2017
Molecular confinement is known to lead to acceleration of molecular dynamics along with surface interaction. Nature employs confinement in molecularly crowded, heterogeneous and, specialized femtoliter (fL) compartments inside living cells for spontaneously achieving higher reaction efficiency and spatial-programming of composite, multi-step biochemical processes. We here show the facile production of aqueous fL droplets for studying molecular confinement on a biochip. We prepare fL aqueous droplets in oil drops on solid substrates by a “field-free”- no external electric fields and electrolytes - piezoelectric inkjet printing in which a novel actuating waveform is employed by picoliter size…