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Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Are We Getting Closer to Artificial Life?

Implications for Health Care?  Health-Technical. 

In Nature:  Article, Published: 14 September 2022

Living material assembly of bacteriogenic protocells

Can Xu, Nicolas Martin, Mei Li & Stephen Mann 

Nature volume 609, pages 1029–1037 (2022)   Cite this article

Abstract

Advancing the spontaneous bottom-up construction of artificial cells with high organizational complexity and diverse functionality remains an unresolved issue at the interface between living and non-living matter1,2,3,4. Here, to address this challenge, we developed a living material assembly process based on the capture and on-site processing of spatially segregated bacterial colonies within individual coacervate microdroplets for the endogenous construction of membrane-bounded, molecularly crowded, and compositionally, structurally and morphologically complex synthetic cells. The bacteriogenic protocells inherit diverse biological components, exhibit multifunctional cytomimetic properties and can be endogenously remodelled to include a spatially partitioned DNA–histone nucleus-like condensate, membranized water vacuoles and a three-dimensional network of F-actin proto-cytoskeletal filaments. The ensemble is biochemically energized by ATP production derived from implanted live Escherichia coli cells to produce a cellular bionic system with amoeba-like external morphology and integrated life-like properties. Our results demonstrate a bacteriogenic strategy for the bottom-up construction of functional protoliving microdevices and provide opportunities for the fabrication of new synthetic cell modules and augmented living/synthetic cell constructs with potential applications in engineered synthetic biology and biotechnology.  ... ' 

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