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Updated: May 22, 2025

Author Spotlight: Membrane Protein Reconstitution in Synthetic Cells
Published on: March 8, 2024
Receptor-Mediated Transmembrane Activation of Protein Folding in Synthetic Cells
Andreas Bo Tker Pedersen1, Dante Guldbrandsen Andersen2, Josefine Hammer Jakobsen1
1Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University, Aarhus C 8000, Denmark.
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Synthetic cells are a rapidly maturing platform with emerging applications in biomedicine and biotechnology. The specific novelty of this work is that we develop synthetic cells that respond to an extracellular stimulus by performing the folding of an encapsulated polypeptide into a functional enzyme. To this end, we developed artificial transmembrane signaling receptors. These contain an extracellular enzyme-responsive group, a self-immolative linker as the mechanism of signal transduction, and a secondary messenger molecule with intracellular activity. The secondary messenger is chosen such that it initiates protein refolding from the denatured polypeptide. Results of this study expand the molecular toolbox for the design of synthetic cells with life-like, responsive behavior.
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