ReviewExperimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.)2017
Artificial cell mimics as simplified models for the study of cell biology.
Review in Experimental biology and medicine (Maywood, N.J.), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bacterial turbulence drives interfacial waves and shape dynamics in phase-separated droplets.Nature communications · 2026Article
- QuantGUV: Quantifying Encapsulation Efficiency of Small Molecules in Giant Unilamellar Vesicles.ACS applied materials & interfaces · 2026Article
- Let There be Light! Light as an Engine and Regulator in Synthetic Cells.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- Bottom-Up Synthetic Biology for Artificial Cell Design: From Scaffold Materials to Functional Integration.Journal of microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Review
- Review
- Force Transmission by Minimal Focal Adhesion Complexes Induces Synthetic Cell Deformation.ACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
- Intercalant Aggregation Promotes Nanoscopic Depletion in Droplet Interface Bilayers.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2025Article
- Cation-Controlled Assembly, Activity, and Organization of Biomimetic DNA Receptors in Synthetic Cell Membranes.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- The minimal chemotactic cell.Science advances · 2025Article
- Unlocking the power of membrane biophysics: enhancing the study of antimicrobial peptides activity and selectivity.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Biomimetic Materials to Fabricate Artificial Cells.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- Artificial cell system as a tool for investigating pattern formation mechanisms of intracellular reaction-diffusion waves.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2024Review
- Bioinspired photocatalytic systems towards compartmentalized artificial photosynthesis.Communications chemistry · 2023Review
- A Synthetic Signaling Network Imitating the Action of Immune Cells in Response to Bacterial Metabolism.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2023Article
- A Role for Bottom-Up Synthetic Cells in the Internet of Bio-Nano Things?Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Measuring Encapsulation Efficiency in Cell-Mimicking Giant Unilamellar Vesicles.ACS synthetic biology · 2023Article
- Self assembling nanoparticle enzyme clusters provide access to substrate channeling in multienzymatic cascades.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Article
- Toward Interdisciplinary Synergies in Molecular Communications: Perspectives from Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, Communications Engineering and Philosophy of Science.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Synthetic cell research: Is technical progress leaving theoretical and epistemological investigations one step behind?Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Living cells are hugely complex chemical systems composed of a milieu of distinct chemical species (including DNA, proteins, lipids, and metabolites) interconnected with one another through a vast web of interactions: this complexity renders the study of cell biology in a quantitative and systematic manner a difficult task. There has been an increasing drive towards the utilization of artificial cells as cell mimics to alleviate this, a development that has been aided by recent advances in artificial cell construction. Cell mimics are simplified cell-like structures, composed from the bottom-up with precisely defined and tunable compositions. They allow specific facets of cell biology to be studied in isolation, in a simplified environment where control of variables can be achieved without interference from a living and responsive cell. This mini-review outlines the core principles of this approach and surveys recent key investigations that use cell mimics to address a wide range of biological questions. It will also place the field in the context of emerging trends, discuss the associated limitations, and outline future directions of the field. Impact statement Recent years have seen an increasing drive to construct cell mimics and use them as simplified experimental models to replicate and understand biological phenomena in a well-defined and controlled system. By summarizing the advances in this burgeoning field, and using case studies as a basis for discussion on the limitations and future directions of this approach, it is hoped that this minireview will spur others in the experimental biology community to use artificial cells as simplified models with which to probe biological systems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.