Seminar given by Alexandre Baccouche, post-doctoral student at the University of Trento, CIBIO department (Armenise-Harvard laboratory of synthetic and reconstructive biology):

"Artificial cells in synthetic biology: from metabolic engineering to soft-robots".

Wednesday 23 March at 2pm
IEMN Boardroom - Central Laboratory - Villeneuve d'Ascq

Abstract:

Artificial cells is a sub-field of synthetic biology dedicated to the bottom-up assembly of cell-like compartments able to grow, divide, sense and respond to their environment. This blossoming field mingles different communities such as protocells to elucidate the origin of life [1,2], bioengineers in protein production and energy harvesting [3], or even hybrid cellular ecosystems where the artificials cells coexist with natural cells [4,5]. The compartment is often made of phospholipid bilayers grafted with transmembrane peptides or proteins, and have fueled numerous exciting studies on the origin of life and the prebiotic chemistry field, but the synthetic biology community also has interest in encapsulating synthetic genetic circuits for protein production or mimick cellular activity. The production of molecules of interest (often proteins) within the compartment is ensured by a genetic construct (plasmid) bathing in cell-free protein synthesis systems (CFPS systems): everything required to transcribe and translate the gene of interest into a fully functional protein [6].

In this presentation I will introduce the key-features of artificial cells and the technical challenges for high throughput microfluidic production, and illustrate the applications with two projects conducted in the laboratory: the reconstruction of biosynthetic pathway and an example of hybrid cellular ecosystem.

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(2) Schreiber, A.; Huber, M. C.; Schiller, S. M. Prebiotic Protocell Model Based on Dynamic Protein Membranes Accommodating Anabolic Reactions. Langmuir 2019 , 35 (29), 9593-9610. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs. langmuir.9b00445
(3) Berhanu, S.; Ueda, T.; Kuruma, Y. Artificial Photosynthetic Cell Producing Energy for Protein Synthesis. Nat. Commun. 2019 , 10 (1), 1325. https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41467-019-09147-4
(4) Lentini, R.; Martín, N. Y.; Forlin, M.; Belmonte, L.; Fontana, J.; Cornella, M.; Martini, L.; Tamburini, S.; Bentley, W. E.; Jousson, O.; Mansy, S. S. Two-Way Chemical Communication between Artificial and Natural Cells. ACS Cent. Sci. 2017 , 3 (2), 117-123. https://doi.org/10.1021/ acscentsci.6b00330
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(6) Sun, Z. Z.; Hayes, C. A.; Shin, J.; Caschera, F.; Murray, R. M.; Noireaux, V. Protocols for Implementing an Escherichia Coli Based TX-TL Cell-Free Expression System for Synthetic Biology. J. Vis. Exp. 2013 , No. 79, 50762. https://doi.org/10.3791/50762