Asymmetric splitting in dividing lipid-nucleotide multilamellar droplets

Area of Science:

• Biomimetic chemistry
• Synthetic biology
• Soft matter physics

Background:

• Artificial cells (protocells) are crucial for understanding life's origins and developing novel therapeutics.
• Controlled division is essential for protocell proliferation, but asymmetric division remains a significant challenge.
• Existing methods for droplet division often result in symmetric fission, limiting functional complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate asymmetric division in structured liquid droplets without protein machinery.
• To demonstrate the formation of distinct daughter cells (droplet and vesicle) from a single parent droplet.
• To explore the underlying mechanisms of heteromorphic division and biomolecule transfer.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing multilamellar droplets with molecularly crowded interiors.
• Inducing asymmetric division using alkaline phosphatase or multivalent metal cations.
• Analyzing division via changes in lipid headgroup-nucleotide counterion interactions and domain boundary dynamics.

Main Results:

• Structured liquid droplets undergo asymmetric division, yielding a droplet and a vesicle.
• Heteromorphic division is driven by caveola growth along core-shell domain boundaries.
• Functional biomolecules are successfully transferred between protocell generations.

Conclusions:

• Asymmetric division of artificial cells can be achieved without protein components.
• This method provides a pathway for creating proliferating protocell networks.
• The findings represent a significant step towards the bottom-up assembly of functional artificial cells.