An artificial cell membrane with machinery for cell division is a key step towards building a synthetic cell from the bottom-up with the ability to replicate itself.
Synthetic cell membranes now being built in the lab have many of the properties of real cell membranes, but they have lacked a 鈥渄ivisome鈥�, a group of proteins responsible for contorting the cell鈥檚 membrane into hourglass-like shapes to prepare for division.
Now, at the Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials in Germany and his colleagues have incorporated a part of the divisome from the bacterium E. coli into a fully synthetic cell membrane, called a dendrimersome.
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鈥淚t does not look like a real cell, but it captures some of the essence of the real cell,鈥� says Rodriguez-Emmenegger.
The researchers explored whether the addition would give their artificial membrane the ability to transform into the correct shapes for division. They analysed their membrane using spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy, and measured patterns that resembled those found in nature during cell division, as well as some non-natural ones.
Eventually, Rodriguez-Emmenegger and his team hope to incorporate more parts from living cells into their synthetic membrane. 鈥淚 think that, in the long run, we鈥檒l be able to do that with more modules and with different types of cell machinery,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his will give us almost endless possibilities.鈥�
The ultimate goal is a self-dividing artificial cell with synthetic parts, which could have properties not seen in nature, such as stronger and more stable membranes. Self-dividing artificial cells may also help to answer fundamental questions about the origins of life.
It is a significant result, says at the University of Minnesota, and a large number of technical problems had to be solved to achieve it, such as modifying the synthetic membrane to work with the division machinery. But the final goal of how to make synthetic cells divide is still elusive, adds Adamala. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the final breakthrough, it鈥檚 not: 鈥榊ay, [synthetic] cells are self-replicating!鈥� But it is getting very close.鈥�
Advanced Materials
