RoL:EAGER: DESYN-C3. Bottom-up Synthetic Cells Capable of Darwinism, the Archetypal Trait of Life

ROL：渴望：DESYN-C3。

• 批准号: 1844290
• 负责人: Steven Benner
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1844290&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RoL; EAGER; DESYN; C3.; Bottom

With this award, the Chemistry of Life Processes (CLP) Program in the Division of Chemistry is funding work under the direction of Dr. Steven Benner from the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution to create stable artificial cells that may be used in biotechnology, especially in directed evolution. A "bottom-up" program to create artificial cells avoids the need to manage the complexity of modern living cells, a management necessary in "top-down" approaches to minimal cells. However, it requires in turn a cellular architecture simpler than the "water-oil-water" architecture of natural cells. The research focuses on gaining control over phase separation that creates a cell structure with water inside the cell and oil outside through control over surfactants, which are small molecules that have a side that "prefers" to orient toward water and another side that prefers to orient toward the oil. These molecules determine the properties of boundaries and interfaces between the water and oil and in turn can be used in the reproducible preparation of artificial cells that are uniform in size. Such control has been sought for 20 years now and the availability of "off-the-shelf" surfactants that make control possible would boost the efforts to create an artificial cell using a bottom up approach. The research focuses on the incorporation into the artificial cell of genetic systems that themselves can evolve, ultimately to influence the properties of the cells in a way that alters cellular fitness.This project will create synthetic pipelines to make surfactants that give reproducible control over the physical properties of water-oil emulsions from which stable, robust and uniformly sized nanodroplets (synthetic cells) in oil can be prepared. We will develop surfactants that do not denature the enzymes, genes, and other biologics that reside within the cells. The artificial cell architecture involves just two phases, an external lipid phase and internal water phase. Systems that allow the delivery of water and other small molecules to the cell will be integrated in the synthetic cells. The research will then aim to create a mechanism by which the synthetic cells can change their external traits in response to molecular evolution processes that takes plan in the cell.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

有了这个奖项，化学过程的化学过程（CLP）计划是在应用分子进化基金会的史蒂文·本纳（Steven Benner）博士的指导下资助工作，以创建可用于生物技术的稳定人造细胞，尤其是在有向进化中。创建人造细胞的“自下而上”程序避免了管理现代活细胞的复杂性的需求，这是“自上而下”方法的管理方法。但是，它依次需要比天然细胞的“水油水”结构更简单的细胞结构。 该研究的重点是控制相分离，该相位通过控制表面活性剂的控制，从而在细胞内部产生一个细胞结构，而表面活性剂是小分子，这些分子具有“更喜欢”的一侧，而不是方向朝向水，而另一侧则倾向于朝着油。这些分子确定了水与油之间边界和界面的特性，进而可以用于可再现的大小均匀的人造细胞。已经寻求了20年的寻求控制，并且可以使用自下而上的方法来促进“现成”表面活性剂的可用性，从而促进创建人造细胞的努力。 该研究重点是将本身可以发展的遗传系统的人为细胞纳入，最终以改变细胞适应性的方式影响细胞的特性。该项目将创建合成管道，以使表面活性剂可重复控制对水的乳液的物理性能，从而使水上油的物理性能从哪些稳定，稳健，稳健和均匀的nanodynanodroplets inanodynanodroplet（Syntynodroplets）组成（Syntynodroplets）。我们将开发出不会使细胞内部的酶，基因和其他生物制剂变色的表面活性剂。人造细胞结构仅涉及两个阶段，一个外部脂质相和内部水相。允许将水和其他小分子传递到细胞的系统将集成在合成细胞中。 然后，这项研究将旨在创建一种机制，通过该机制，合成细胞可以通过响应分子进化过程来改变其外部性状，该过程在细胞中采用计划。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛影响的审查标准通过评估来进行评估的。