Abstract
Giant lipid vesicles have been extensively used in recent years as in vitro artificial models for protocells, i.e. primitive cell models or synthetic cell-like systems of minimal complexity. Due to their dimensions in the micrometer range, giant vesicles can be designed as micro-sized enzymatic chemical reactors fed by a flux of substrates from the outside and monitored by confocal light microscopy in order to follow the production of fluorescence compounds. In this paper we present a 3D modelling approach to the simulation of giant vesicle where enzymatic reactions take place, and we apply this approach to a case study of a three-enzymes metabolic pathway.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Monnard, P.-A., Deamer, D.W.: Membrane self-assembly processes: steps toward the first cellular life. Anat. Rec. 268, 196–207 (2002)
Luisi, P.L., Ferri, F., Stano, P.: Approaches to semi-synthetic minimal cells: a review. Naturwissenschaften 93, 1–13 (2006)
Mansy, S.S., Szostak, J.W.: Reconstructing the emergence of cellular life through the synthesis of model protocells. Cold Spring Harb. Symp. Quant. Biol. 74, 47–54 (2009)
Kurihara, K., Okura, Y., Matsuo, M., Toyota, T., Suzuki, K., Sugawara, T.: A recursive vesicle-based model protocell with a primitive model cell cycle. Nat. Commun. 6, 8352 (2015). doi:10.1038/ncomms9352
Yu, W., Sato, K., Wakabayashi, M., Nakaishi, T., Ko-Mitamura, E.P., Shima, Y., Urabe, I., Yomo, T.: Synthesis of functional protein in liposome. J. Biosci. Bioeng. 92, 590–593 (2001)
Noireaux, V., Libchaber, A.: A vesicle bioreactor as a step toward an artificial cell assembly. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 101, 17669–17674 (2004)
Stano, P., Carrara, P., Kuruma, Y., Souza, T.P., Luisi, P.L.: Compartmentalized reactions as a case of soft-matter biotechnology: Synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids inside lipid vesicles. J. Mater. Chem. 21, 18887–18902 (2011)
Nourian, Z., Danelon, C.: Linking genotype and phenotype in protein synthesizing liposomes with external supply of resources. ACS Synth. Biol. 2, 186–193 (2013)
Stano, P., D’Aguanno, E., Bolz, J., Fahr, A., Luisi, P.L.: A remarkable self-organization process as the origin of primitive functional cells. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 52, 13397–13400 (2013)
Lentini, R., Santero, S.P., Chizzolini, F., Cecchi, D., Fontana, J., Marchioretto, M., del Bianco, C., Terrell, J.L., Spencer, A.C., Martini, L., et al.: Integrating artificial with natural cells to translate chemical messages that direct E. coli behaviour. Nat. Commun. 5, 4012 (2014). doi:10.1038/ncomms5012
Tomasi, R., Noel, J.-M., Zenati, A., Ristori, S., Rossi, F., Cabuil, V., Kanoufi, F., Abou-Hassan, A.: Chemical communication between liposomes encapsulating a chemical oscillatory reaction. Chem. Sci. 5(5), 1854–1859 (2014)
Stano, P., Wodlei, F., Carrara, P., Ristori, S., Marchettini, N., Rossi, F.: Approaches to molecular communication between synthetic compartments based on encapsulated chemical oscillators. In: Pizzuti, C., Spezzano, G. (eds.) WIVACE 2014. CCIS, vol. 445, pp. 58–74. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)
Rossi, F., Zenati, A., Ristori, S., Noel, J.-M., Cabuil, V., Kanoufi, F., Abou-Hassan, A.: Activatory coupling among oscillating droplets produced in microfluidic based devices. Int. J. Unconv. Comp. 11(1), 23–36 (2015)
Martino, C., Kim, S.-H., Horsfall, L., Abbaspourrad, A., Rosser, S.J., Cooper, J., Weitz, D.A.: Protein expression, aggregation, and triggered release from polymersomes as artificial cell-like structures. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 51, 6416–6420 (2012)
Tang, T.-Y.D., van Swaay, D., deMello, A., Anderson, J.L.R., Mann, S.: In vitro gene expression within membrane-free coacervate protocells. Chem. Commun. 51, 11429–11432 (2015)
Walde, P., Cosentino, K., Engel, H., Stano, P.: Giant vesicles: preparations and applications. ChemBioChem 11, 848–865 (2011)
Mavelli, F., Altamura, E., Cassidei, L., Stano, P.: Recent theoretical approaches to minimal artificial cells. Entropy 16, 2488 (2014)
Shirt-Ediss, B., Ruiz-Mirazo, K., Mavelli, F., Sole, R.V.: Modelling lipid competition dynamics in heterogeneous protocell populations. Sci. Rep. 4, 5675 (2014)
Mavelli, F., Ruiz-Mirazo, K.: Theoretical conditions for the stationary reproduction of model protocells. Integr. Biol. 5, 324–341 (2013)
Mavelli, F.: Stochastic simulations of minimal cells: the Ribocell model. BMC Bioinform. 13(4), S10 (2012)
Mavelli, F., Ruiz-Mirazo, K.: ENVIRONMENT: a computational platform to stochastically simulate reacting and self reproducing compartments. Phys. Biol. 3, 36002 (2010)
Luisi, P.L., Allegretti, M., Souza, T., Steineger, F., Fahr, A., Stano, P.: Spontaneous protein crowding in liposomes: a new vista for the origin of cellular metabolism. ChemBioChem 11, 1989 (2010)
Souza, T.P., Fahr, A., Luisi, P.L., Stano, P.: Spontaneous encapsulation and concentration of biological macromolecules in liposomes: an intriguing phenomenon and its relevance in origins of life. J. Mol. Evol. 79, 179 (2014)
Mavelli, F., Stano, P.: Experiments and numerical modelling on the capture and concentration of transcription-translation machinery inside vesicles. Artif. Life 21, 1–19 (2015)
Mavelli, F., Rampioni, G., Damiano, L., Messina, M., Leoni, L., Stano, P.: Molecular communication technology: general considerations on the use of synthetic cells and some hints from in silico modeling. In: Pizzuti, C., Spezzano, G. (eds.) WIVACE 2014. CCIS, vol. 445, pp. 169–189. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)
Bienert, G.P., Schjoerring, J.K., Jahn, T.P.: Membrane transport of hydrogen peroxide. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1758, 994–1003 (2006)
Robertson, R.N.: The Lively Membranes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1983)
Daniels, F., Alberty, R.A.: Physical Chemistry. Wiley, NewYork (1961)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mavelli, F., Altamura, E., Stano, P. (2016). Giant Vesicles as Compartmentalized Bio-reactors: A 3D Modelling Approach. In: Rossi, F., Mavelli, F., Stano, P., Caivano, D. (eds) Advances in Artificial Life, Evolutionary Computation and Systems Chemistry. WIVACE 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 587. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32695-5_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32695-5_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32694-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32695-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)