Build-a-Cell: Engineering a Synthetic Cell Community

Frischmon, Caroline; Sorenson, Carlise; Winikoff, Michael; Adamala, Katarzyna P.

doi:10.3390/life11111176

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In particular, we will focus on bottom-up approaches and on the so-called synthetic (or artificial) cells (SCs or ACs) ( Luisi 2002 ; Salehi-Reyhan et al, 2017 ; Göpfrich et al, 2018 ; Guindani et al, 2022 ), Figure 1A . In the past few years, indeed, the worldwide community of SC practitioners has generated a very relevant momentum, promoted by the onset of numerous consortia and projects ( Schwille et al, 2018 ; Frischmon et al, 2021 ). The question we would like to deal with is the following: is it possible to devise minimal forms of perceptive chemical AI in SCs?…”

Section: A Synthetic Biology Platform For Embodied Chemical Aimentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Neural Networks Inside Synthetic Cells? A Proposal for Their Realization and Modeling

Gentili

Stano

2022

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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Section: A Synthetic Biology Platform For Embodied Chemical Aimentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Neural Networks Inside Synthetic Cells? A Proposal for Their Realization and Modeling

Gentili

Stano

2022

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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“…Bottom-up synthetic biology is an emerging field at the interface of cell biology, chemistry, and physics. Several national and international initiatives have been founded recently, which are aimed at reconstituting synthetic cells that can autonomously grow and divide. , As a chassis, usually giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are used, which are cell-sized (5–50 μm) containers enveloped in a lipid bilayer. − One of the key functions that a synthetic cell must be able to perform in order to be considered lifelike is cytokinesis, a process in which a cell physically splits into two daughter cells. To reconstitute cytokinesis, various strategies are being pursued, inspired by biological strategies employed by prokaryotic, archaeal, or eukaryotic cells. , These biological systems have in common that cell division is accomplished by a cytoskeletal protein machinery, often ring-shaped, that assembles at the cell equator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actomyosin-Driven Division of a Synthetic Cell

et al. 2022

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One of the major challenges of bottom-up synthetic biology is rebuilding a minimal cell division machinery. From a reconstitution perspective, the animal cell division apparatus is mechanically the simplest and therefore attractive to rebuild. An actin-based ring produces contractile force to constrict the membrane. By contrast, microbes and plant cells have a cell wall, so division requires concerted membrane constriction and cell wall synthesis. Furthermore, reconstitution of the actin division machinery helps in understanding the physical and molecular mechanisms of cytokinesis in animal cells and thus our own cells. In this review, we describe the state-of-the-art research on reconstitution of minimal actin-mediated cytokinetic machineries. Based on the conceptual requirements that we obtained from the physics of the shape changes involved in cell division, we propose two major routes for building a minimal actin apparatus capable of division. Importantly, we acknowledge both the passive and active roles that the confining lipid membrane can play in synthetic cytokinesis. We conclude this review by identifying the most pressing challenges for future reconstitution work, thereby laying out a roadmap for building a synthetic cell equipped with a minimal actin division machinery.

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“…There is an enthusiastic involvement of researchers coming from different backgrounds. New centers, networks, consortia, and initiatives are currently driving the field forward (Schwille et al, 2018;Frischmon et al, 2021;Staufer et al, 2021). Importantly, the construction of living SC (considered the "Holy Grail" of the field), the understanding of the non-life to life transition, and the determination of the minimal complexity of living beings, have been flanked by other relevant goals.…”

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confidence: 99%

A four-track perspective for bottom-up synthetic cells

Stano

2022

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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A crucial move for the development of the bottom-up synthetic biology (SB) branch took place about 20 years ago, when Jack W. Szostak, David Bartel and Pier Luigi Luisi coauthored a Nature paper entitled "Synthesizing Life" (Szostak et al., 2001), which can be considered a sort of foundational paper for (or even the manifesto of) the modern approaches for constructing living artificial cells from scratch. Possibly as a sign of the Zeitgeist, the article was published almost simultaneously to two other foundational papers in SB (Elowitz et al., 2000;Gardner et al., 2000).The very idea of synthesizing life-the Faustian dream of all times-is not new. Several (unsuccessful) attempts to build cell-like systems of minimal complexity fill the annals of science (Hanczyc, 2009). These attempts share a common anti-vitalistic viewpoint: synthesizing (cellular) life from scratch should be possible, and it would demonstrate that the biological phenomenology follows a "continuity principle" with respect to physics and chemistry. That is, life is an emergent property of some molecular systems characterized by a very peculiar type of structural and dynamical (self-) organization. However trivial and generally taken for granted by scientists, the emergence of life from inanimate matter has never been demonstrated experimentally and it is still one of the big targets in science.What is, then, the remarkable and novel element that has been put forward in the "Synthesizing Life" article, and that can be considered as a foundational concept for bottom-up approaches in SB? The Authors actually focused on the hypothetical construction of primitive cell (protocell) models, made of catalytically active RNAs (ribozymes) (Bartel and Szostak, 1993; Eckland et al., 1995), encapsulated inside fatty acid vesicles (Hargreaves and Deamer, 1978; Bachman et al., 1992;Walde et al., 1994). The claim is that such structures would display minimal life-like behavior (reproductive and potentially evolutive) if the intravesicle ribozymes catalyze their own replication and the production of membrane molecules at the expenses of certain precursors available in the environment. The whole process would lead to a spontaneous growth-division of protocells in an allegedly primitive Earth scenario.Leaving aside, for the moment, the mechanistic details and their plausibility, the fundamental and explicit message of that paper goes beyond the apparently narrow focus on the origin of life. To a closer inspection, in fact, the Authors put forward an operational methodology for the construction of chemical reacting systems that would show the difficult-to-define property of being alive just by fulfilling a specific structural and

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Build-a-Cell: Engineering a Synthetic Cell Community

Cited by 18 publications

References 17 publications

Chemical Neural Networks Inside Synthetic Cells? A Proposal for Their Realization and Modeling

Chemical Neural Networks Inside Synthetic Cells? A Proposal for Their Realization and Modeling

Actomyosin-Driven Division of a Synthetic Cell

A four-track perspective for bottom-up synthetic cells

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