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Updated: Oct 14, 2025
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Mimicking the Function of Signaling Proteins: Toward Artificial Signal Transduction Therapy
Published on: September 29, 2016
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Construction of protocell-based artificial signal transduction pathways
Chong Chen1,2, Xuejing Wang3, Ying Wang1,2
1State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China. caojinxuan@nbu.edu.cn.
Chemical Communications (Cambridge, England)
|November 10, 2021
Summary
This review explores creating synthetic cell communities that communicate using artificial signaling pathways. It covers designing these pathways and molecules for cell-to-cell communication in synthetic biology.
Area of Science:
- Synthetic biology
- Cellular communication
- Protocell development
Background:
- Multicellular societies rely on cell signaling for order and control.
- Replicating complex cell signaling in synthetic protocells is a major challenge.
- Bottom-up synthetic biology aims to build artificial cellular systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review advances in designing interactive protocell communities.
- To explore artificial paracrine and juxtacrine signaling pathway construction.
- To summarize molecules and signal outputs in synthetic cell communication.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent literature on protocell community design.
- Analysis of artificial signaling pathway strategies (paracrine and juxtacrine).
- Identification of key signaling molecules and diverse signal outputs.
Main Results:
- Protocell communities can be designed for intercellular communication.
- Artificial signaling pathways mimic natural cell-to-cell communication.
- Key molecules and signal outputs for synthetic communication are identified.
Conclusions:
- Significant progress has been made in constructing interactive protocell communities.
- Artificial signaling pathways offer a route to controllable synthetic cellular systems.
- Further research is needed to address limitations and challenges in the field.
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