L-forms and the unusual formation of progeny in cell wall-less bacteria: recognizing the old roots of new science

Martin, Hans Herbert

doi:10.1007/s00203-009-0540-5

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…In light of the fact that many L-form bacteria reproduce by ''budding-like'' mechanisms (Gilpin and Nagy 1976;Martin 2010), membrane synthesis may be a good reproduction strategy for simple synthetic cells. Indeed, multiple authors have suggested that this mechanism represents an ancient reproduction mode that might have been active during the prebiotic times, dating back to the origin of life (Leaver et al 2009;Chen 2009;Briers et al 2012b;Koonin and Mulkidjanian 2013).…”

Section: Division Driven By Active Chemical Synthesis Of Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divided we stand: splitting synthetic cells for their proliferation

Caspi

Dekker

2014

Syst Synth Biol

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With the recent dawn of synthetic biology, the old idea of man-made artificial life has gained renewed interest. In the context of a bottom-up approach, this entails the de novo construction of synthetic cells that can autonomously sustain themselves and proliferate. Reproduction of a synthetic cell involves the synthesis of its inner content, replication of its information module, and growth and division of its shell. Theoretical and experimental analysis of natural cells shows that, whereas the core synthesis machinery of the information module is highly conserved, a wide range of solutions have been realized in order to accomplish division. It is therefore to be expected that there are multiple ways to engineer division of synthetic cells. Here we survey the field and review potential routes that can be explored to accomplish the division of bottom-up designed synthetic cells. We cover a range of complexities from simple abiotic mechanisms involving splitting of lipid-membrane-encapsulated vesicles due to physical or chemical principles, to potential division mechanisms of synthetic cells that are based on prokaryotic division machineries.

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