Synthetic cell engineering: harnessing polymers for dynamic biomimicry Yeyang Sun 2 , Claudia Contini 1 1 Department of Materials, Imperial College London, UK, 2 Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, UK Bottom-up synthetic biology aims to create artificial cells starting from molecular building blocks[1]. Artificial cells (ACs), also known as minimal cells or synthetic cells, refer to a system that can encapsulate bioactive elements. ACs can not only be manufactured for real cell structural mimicking and compartmentalisation but also show huge potential in stimulus-response systems. ACs for these applications can be made of different materials including proteins, lipids and polymers. Among them, polymer synthetic cells have received substantial attention recently because they can form vesicles with enhancedproperties compared with traditional vesicles. For example, they have higher rigidity, better stability, lower permeability and are more diverse and tunable[2], [3]. In this project, we use bottom-up strategies to make thermal-responsive vesicles. Our thermal-responsive ACs can change their structures in response to temperature changes and this can be attributed to the change in the hydrophilicity of polymer chains which is fundamental in bilayer formation. The temperature-induced structure change can then cause numerous dynamic behaviours such as moving, communicating, fusion, stimuli-responding and self- regeneration. These behaviours can be further applied for a huge variety of applications, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, gene therapy, and cancer diagnosis[4]–[6]. Furthermore, by using different polymers, stimuli- responsive vesicles can release their cargo in acontrolled manner by appropriately applying environmental change which can be harvested for drugdelivery or other biomedical fields. We believe polymeric ACs, functioning as a new generation material, can go beyond biomedical field into water, energy, and material chemistry applications, which will make a great contribution to improving energy efficiency, boosting people's health, and understanding human origin. References 1. W. Jiang, Y. Zhou, and D. Yan, “Hyperbranched polymer vesicles: from self-assembly, characterization, mechanisms, and properties to applications,” Chem Soc Rev , vol. 44, no. 12, pp. 3874–3889, 2015, doi: 10.1039/C4CS00274A. 2. E. Rideau, R. Dimova, P. Schwille, F. R. Wurm, and K. Landfester, “Liposomes and polymersomes: a comparative review towards cell mimicking,” Chem Soc Rev , vol. 47, no. 23, pp. 8572–8610, 2018, doi: 10.1039/C8CS00162F. 3. S. Egli, H. Schlaad, N. Bruns, and W. Meier, “Functionalization of Block Copolymer Vesicle Surfaces,” Polymers (Basel) , vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 252–280, Jan. 2011, doi: 10.3390/polym3010252. 4. V. De Leo, F. Milano, A. Agostiano, and L. Catucci, “Recent Advancements in Polymer/Liposome Assembly for Drug Delivery: From Surface Modifications to Hybrid Vesicles,” Polymers (Basel) , vol. 13, no. 7, p. 1027, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.3390/ polym13071027. 5. R. P. Brinkhuis, F. P. J. T. Rutjes, and J. C. M. van Hest, “Polymeric vesicles in biomedical applications,” Polym Chem , vol. 2, no. 7, p. 1449, 2011, doi: 10.1039/c1py00061f. 6. J. Zhou, Y. Zhang, and R. Wang, “Controllable loading and release of nanodrugs in polymeric vesicles,” Giant , vol. 12, p. 100126, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.giant.2022.100126.
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