Intercellular communication between artificial cells by allosteric amplification of a molecular signal

Bastiaan C. Buddingh', Janneke Elzinga, Jan C.M. van Hest (Corresponding author)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

125 Citations (Scopus)
139 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Multicellular organisms rely on intercellular communication to coordinate the behaviour of individual cells, which enables their differentiation and hierarchical organization. Various cell mimics have been developed to establish fundamental engineering principles for the construction of artificial cells displaying cell-like organization, behaviour and complexity. However, collective phenomena, although of great importance for a better understanding of life-like behaviour, are underexplored. Here, we construct collectives of giant vesicles that can communicate with each other through diffusing chemical signals that are recognized and processed by synthetic enzymatic cascades. Similar to biological cells, the Receiver vesicles can transduce a weak signal originating from Sender vesicles into a strong response by virtue of a signal amplification step, which facilitates the propagation of signals over long distances within the artificial cell consortia. This design advances the development of interconnected artificial cells that can exchange metabolic and positional information to coordinate their higher-order organization.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1652
Number of pages10
JournalNature Communications
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Apr 2020

Funding

FundersFunder number
European Union's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme694120
H2020 European Research Council
Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap024.001.035

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