Abstract
Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary branch of science that exploits the advancement of molecular and cellular biology. Conventional modification of pre-existing cells is referred to as the top-down approach. Bottom-up synthetic biology is an emerging complementary branch that seeks to construct artificial cells from natural or synthetic components. One of the aims in bottom-up synthetic biology is to construct or mimic the complex pathways present in living cells. The recent, and rapidly growing, application of microfluidics in the field is driven by the central tenet of the bottom-up approach—the pursuit of controllably generating artificial cells with precisely defined parameters, in terms of molecular and geometrical composition. In this review we survey conventional methods of artificial cell synthesis and their limitations. We proceed to show how microfluidic approaches have been pivotal in overcoming these limitations and ushering in a new generation of complexity that may be imbued in artificial cells and the milieu of applications that result.
Highlights
Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field bringing together several different disciplines which include genetic design and engineering, biology, nanotechnology, chemistry and physics
The methods highlighted above have not been ideal in the encapsulation of biomolecules, which is an important prerequisite in the generation of artificial cells, recently there has been an increase in efforts to investigate different approaches to form GUVs with a focus on microfluidic technologies
We have presented a detailed compilation of the various efforts of producing artificial cells using microfluidic technology
Summary
Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field bringing together several different disciplines which include genetic design and engineering, biology, nanotechnology, chemistry and physics. Gaining inspiration from electronics, these relatively simple systems include multistate genetic toggle switches [6], pulse generators [7], oscillators [8] and digital logic gates [9] These early successes within a simpler network has inspired synthetic biologists to make significant progress in developing a wider range of modular genetic parts that have a more standardised design and connectivity principles. This allows the construction of novel circuits with a greater complexity to be streamlined, allowing the programming of diverse cellular behaviours such as transcription, translation and post translation. Recent work in the field has largely focused on the construction of gene circuits, various biological modules as well as synthetic pathways into genetically reprogrammed organisms
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