Artificial cell based on in vitro expression: expressing, feeding, degrading

From Santa Fe Institute Event Wiki

An engineering approach is used to build a protocell as a synthetic phospholipids vesicle programmable with DNA. A cell-free expression system is encapsulated in phospholipid vesicles. The translation machinery of the extract is used to express plasmid genes. The main challenge of this work is to reach homeostasis by (1) maintaining efficient in vitro expression on long period of time by feeding the artificial cell, (2) degrading selectively the synthesized messengers and proteins. We will show how some of the difficulties have been solved to engineer a long-lived vesicle bioreactor. Perspectives and limitations of this approach will be discussed.