Sprecher
Beschreibung
Spatial organization is a defining characteristic of all living organisms but has been challenging to engineer from the bottom up. By colocalizing specific reactions and separating others, synthetic compartments have the potential to improve the biochemical capabilities of artificial cells and cell-free systems. How can we encode spatial organization in a nucleotide sequence? To answer this question, my lab uses cell-free synthesis to produce molecules that have the ability to self-assemble or self-organize into compartments and patterns. I will present examples of our recent work on engineering spatial organization in biomimetic systems. In an effort to generate and engineer self-organized patterns in communities artificial cells, we have developed polymeric cell mimics that communicate diffusively with their neighbors. Cell mimics contain DNA-hydrogel compartments that code for diffusive protein and RNA signals, which support the formation of gene expression gradients in cell mimic communities. Furthermore, in addition to microfluidically produced cell mimics, we explore self-assembled and programmable coacervate systems to compartmentalize cell-free reactions. Our results show that a combination of biological and synthetic materials facilitates the engineering of spatial organization in biomimetic systems and will help integrate increasingly complex functions in artificial cells and cell-free systems.
