A synthetic metabolic network for physicochemical homeostasis

Tjeerd Pols,Bert Poolman,Bauke F Gaastra,Wojciech M Śmigiel,Shubham Singh,Hendrik R Sikkema,Jacopo Frallicciardi

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12287-2

Tjeerd Pols, Bert Poolman + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12287-2

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Journal: Nature Communications	Publication Date: Sep 18, 2019
Citations: 53	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Groningen

Abstract

One of the grand challenges in chemistry is the construction of functional out-of-equilibrium networks, which are typical of living cells. Building such a system from molecular components requires control over the formation and degradation of the interacting chemicals and homeostasis of the internal physical-chemical conditions. The provision and consumption of ATP lies at the heart of this challenge. Here we report the in vitro construction of a pathway in vesicles for sustained ATP production that is maintained away from equilibrium by control of energy dissipation. We maintain a constant level of ATP with varying load on the system. The pathway enables us to control the transmembrane fluxes of osmolytes and to demonstrate basic physicochemical homeostasis. Our work demonstrates metabolic energy conservation and cell volume regulatory mechanisms in a cell-like system at a level of complexity minimally needed for life.

Highlights

One of the grand challenges in chemistry is the construction of functional out-of-equilibrium networks, which are typical of living cells
In the field of bottom-up synthetic biology, work is progressing toward establishing new information storage systems[5], replication of DNA by self-encoded proteins[6], the engineering of gene and protein networks[7,8], formation of skeletal-like networks[9], biosynthesis of lipids[10,11,12], division of vesicles[13,14], development of non-lipid compartment systems[15,16] and chemical homeostasis through self-replication[17,18]
Long-term sustained synthesis of chemicals is a bottleneck in the development and application of synthetic cell-like systems[22,23]

Summary

Introduction

One of the grand challenges in chemistry is the construction of functional out-of-equilibrium networks, which are typical of living cells. To determine the fraction of vesicles with a fully functional arginine breakdown pathway, we compared the rates of transport of glycine betaine in our synthetic cell system with those of OpuA vesicles containing 10 mM of ATP.

Results

Conclusion