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Construction of complex bacteriogenic protocells from living material assembly
Can Xu1,2, Mei Li3,4, Nicolas Martin5
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P. R. China. xucan@sjtu.edu.cn.
Nature Protocols
|March 5, 2025
Summary
Researchers created complex synthetic cells, called bacteriogenic protocells, using bacteria as building blocks. These protocells exhibit life-like functions and can be engineered for synthetic biology and biomedicine.
Area of Science:
- Synthetic Biology
- Origin of Life Research
- Biomaterials
Background:
- Constructing complex, life-like synthetic cells remains a significant challenge in protocell research.
- Existing methods struggle to replicate the organizational and functional complexity of natural cells.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel protocol for creating advanced bacteriogenic protocells.
- To utilize prokaryotes as integrated building blocks for synthetic cell construction.
Main Methods:
- Encapsulating spatially segregated bacterial colonies within coacervate microdroplets.
- Leveraging bacteria as endogenous sources for compositional, functional, and structural components.
- Inducing endogenous remodeling to form proto-organelles like nucleus-like condensates and proto-mitochondria.
Main Results:
- Successfully constructed membrane-bounded, molecularly crowded synthetic cells with high complexity.
- Bacteriogenic protocells demonstrated integrated life-like properties: biocatalysis, glycolysis, and gene expression.
- Protocells developed endogenous proto-organelles and acquired a nonspherical morphology due to metabolic activity.
Conclusions:
- This protocol offers a new strategy for assembling functional protoliving microdevices.
- The bacteriogenic protocell approach holds potential for engineered synthetic biology and biomedical applications.
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