Imperial develops fluorescent artificial cell
31 Jul 2019
Imperial College London has created an artificial cell that fluoresces when it detects chemical changes in the surrounding environment.
Imperial say that it is the first artificial cell system the university has developed that can interpret chemical information through activation of a signalling pathway – making it unique compared to other artificial cell systems.
First author James Hindley, from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial, told Laboratory News: “Whilst artificial cells have been previously designed to communicate with bacteria, such systems lack the signalling cascades used in biology.
“By building artificial pathways from biochemical ‘parts’ we can create responsive cell mimics using a plug-and-play approach, which has been unexplored to date.”
The system could have applications across biotechnology, including responding to changes in the body by releasing drug molecules.
“We could envisage creating artificial cells that can sense cancer markers and synthesise a drug within the body, or artificial cells that can sense dangerous heavy metals in the environment and release selective sponges to clean them up,” Professor Hindley said.
In living biological cells, toxic by-products can be released in response to chemical changes, but in an artificial cell, this is not an issue. Imperial also said other researchers can take elements from across nature to create new chemical pathways with specific aims in mind.
In Imperial's system, the edge of the artificial cell is formed of a membrane that contains pores, which allow calcium ions to enter.
Researchers used enzymes taken from bee venom, which are activated by the calcium ions, causing vesicles within the cell to release particles that fluoresce.
The system is described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
