Building programmable multicompartment artificial cells incorporating remotely activated protein channels using microfluidics and acoustic levitation

Jin Li (), William D. Jamieson, Pantelitsa Dimitriou, Wen Xu, Paul Rohde, Boris Martinac, Matthew Baker, Bruce W. Drinkwater (), Oliver K. Castell () and David A. Barrow ()
Additional contact information
Jin Li: Cardiff University, The Parade
William D. Jamieson: Cardiff University
Pantelitsa Dimitriou: Cardiff University, The Parade
Wen Xu: Cardiff University
Paul Rohde: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
Boris Martinac: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
Matthew Baker: School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science, UNSW
Bruce W. Drinkwater: University of Bristol
Oliver K. Castell: Cardiff University
David A. Barrow: Cardiff University, The Parade

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Intracellular compartments are functional units that support the metabolism within living cells, through spatiotemporal regulation of chemical reactions and biological processes. Consequently, as a step forward in the bottom-up creation of artificial cells, building analogous intracellular architectures is essential for the expansion of cell-mimicking functionality. Herein, we report the development of a droplet laboratory platform to engineer complex emulsion-based, multicompartment artificial cells, using microfluidics and acoustic levitation. Such levitated models provide free-standing, dynamic, definable droplet networks for the compartmentalisation of chemical species. Equally, they can be remotely operated with pneumatic, heating, and magnetic elements for post-processing, including the incorporation of membrane proteins; alpha-hemolysin; and mechanosensitive channel of large-conductance. The assembly of droplet networks is three-dimensionally patterned with fluidic input configurations determining droplet contents and connectivity, whilst acoustic manipulation can be harnessed to reconfigure the droplet network in situ. The mechanosensitive channel can be repeatedly activated and deactivated in the levitated artificial cell by the application of acoustic and magnetic fields to modulate membrane tension on demand. This offers possibilities beyond one-time chemically mediated activation to provide repeated, non-contact, control of membrane protein function. Collectively, this expands our growing capability to program and operate increasingly sophisticated artificial cells as life-like materials.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31898-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31898-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31898-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().