A Dual Receptor and Reporter for Multi-Modal Cell Surface Engineering.

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Chemical Biology
• Materials Science

Background:

• Cell membrane manipulation is crucial for advancing human health diagnostics, therapeutics, and biotechnologies.
• Existing methods often rely on complex molecular biology or metabolic pathways.
• Novel tools are needed to engineer cell surface properties for enhanced therapeutic and diagnostic applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel dual receptor and reporter system for cell surfaces.
• To enable ligand conjugation and simultaneous fluorescence reporting without genetic modification.
• To demonstrate applications in cell signaling, cell-cell interactions, and tissue construction.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a liposome fusion and delivery strategy to present engineered receptors on cell surfaces.
• Incorporated bio-orthogonal functional groups for ligand conjugation and fluorescence reporting.
• Demonstrated conjugation and tracking of various cell surface ligands.

Main Results:

• Successfully presented a dual receptor and reporter system on cell surfaces.
• Achieved temporal control of cell fluorescent signaling through ligand conjugation.
• Showcased applications in modulating cell-cell interactions and constructing tissue assemblies.

Conclusions:

• The developed liposome-based system offers a versatile platform for cell surface engineering.
• This approach bypasses the need for molecular biology or metabolic biosynthesis.
• The dual system holds significant potential for next-generation therapies, cell behavior studies, and biotechnologies.