Versatile Phospholipid Assemblies for Functional Synthetic Cells and Artificial Tissues

Abstract

The bottom‐up construction of a synthetic cell from nonliving building blocks capable of mimicking cellular properties and behaviors helps to understand the particular biophysical properties and working mechanisms of a cell. A synthetic cell built in this way possesses defined chemical composition and structure. Since phospholipids are native biomembrane components, their assemblies are widely used to mimic cellular structures. Here, recent developments in the formation of versatile phospholipid assemblies are described, together with the applications of these assemblies for functional membranes (protein reconstituted giant unilamellar vesicles), spherical and nonspherical protoorganelles, and functional synthetic cells, as well as the high‐order hierarchical structures of artificial tissues. Their biomedical applications are also briefly summarized. Finally, the challenges and future directions in the field of synthetic cells and artificial tissues based on phospholipid assemblies are proposed.

Engineering spatiotemporal organization and dynamics in synthetic cells

“…It is worth noting that the translocation of membrane proteins into the polymer or hybrid membranes, in general, may not necessarily be better than phospholipid bilayer membranes. (Göpfrich, Platzman, & Spatz, 2018; Schwille et al, 2018; Wang, Du, Wang, Mu, & Han, 2020) In another work, the bottom‐up reconstitution of an artificial mitochondrion was demonstrated in both polymersomes and hybrid membrane vesicles by reconstituting an ATP synthase and a terminal oxidase, furthering the possibility of using hybrid membranes in synthetic cells (Otrin et al, 2017).…”

“…In this section, we discuss emerging concepts of cellular compartmentalization including several protein‐based organelles found in bacteria and biomolecular condensates. We will not discuss lipid‐ and vesicle‐based strategies explicitly in this section as these approaches are more established and already covered in a number of excellent recent review articles (Göpfrich et al, 2018; Schwille et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2020).…”

Recent Progress of Lung Cancer Diagnosis Using Nanomaterials

“…Additionally, there are some other nanomaterials that have been studied and applied to detect lung cancer biomarker. The lipid bilayer is composed of phospholipids and cholesterol, which is similar to the cell membrane [59,[88][89][90][91][92][93][94]. Hence liposomes have higher biosafety and biocompatibility compared to other synthetic materials [95].…”

Vesicle-based artificial cells: materials, construction methods and applications

“…3 In bottom-up approaches of artificial cells, the constitution of a synthetic cell model is based on vesicles, assembled from molecular building blocks and capable of mimicking cellular behavior. 4,5 The building blocks can be varied using different materials such as phospholipids, 6,7 amphiphilic polymers, 8,9 hybrid composites of them, 10,11 and cell membrane-derived native materials. 12,13 Thus, a deep understanding of the individual building blocks, including their component materials, self-assembling structures and dynamic behavior, is required in order to obtain a well-defined model of artificial cells.…”