ArticleACS synthetic biology2020
Transcription and Translation in Cytomimetic Protocells Perform Most Efficiently at Distinct Macromolecular Crowding Conditions.
Article in ACS synthetic biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed.
- Omega stabilizes RNA polymerase condensates and contributes to cellular fitness during acid stress.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Metal-dependent and metal-free mechanisms of peptide condensate catalysts.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Bottom-up Strategies for Generating Polymer Protocells That Mimic Cellular Communication.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Review
- Simultaneous in vitro expression of minimal 21 transfer RNAs by tRNA array method.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Molecular and Biophysical Perspectives on Dormancy Breaking: Lessons from Yeast Spore.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- Liposome-EncapsulatedACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- Growing functional artificial cytoskeletons in the viscoelastic confinement of DNA synthetic cells.Nature chemical engineering · 2025Article
- Challenges in observing transcription-translation for bottom-up synthetic biology.QRB discovery · 2025Review
- Cytoplasmic fluidization contributes to breaking spore dormancy in fission yeast.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Artificial cells for in vivo biomedical applications through red blood cell biomimicry.Nature communications · 2024Review
- SecYEG-mediated translocation in a model synthetic cell.Synthetic biology (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Toehold switch plus signal amplification enables rapid detection.Biotechnology journal · 2023Article
- Macromolecular crowding: Sensing without a sensor.Current opinion in cell biology · 2023Review
- Noise Minimization in Cell-Free Gene Expression.ACS synthetic biology · 2023Article
- Compartmentalized Cell-Free Expression Systems for Building Synthetic Cells.Advances in biochemical engineering/biotechnology · 2023Article
- Activation/Inhibition of Gene Expression Caused by Alcohols: Relationship with the Viscoelastic Property of a DNA Molecule.Polymers · 2022Article
- ATP:MgBiophysical journal · 2022Article
- High Macromolecular Crowding in Liposomes from Microfluidics.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Hydrogels as functional components in artificial cell systems.Nature reviews. Chemistry · 2022Review
- Negative autoregulation controls size scaling in confined gene expression reactions.Scientific reports · 2022Article
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8 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The formation of cytomimetic protocells that capture the physicochemical aspects of living cells is an important goal in bottom-up synthetic biology. Here, we recreated the crowded cytoplasm in liposome-based protocells and studied the kinetics of cell-free gene expression in these crowded containers. We found that diffusion of key components is affected not only by macromolecular crowding but also by enzymatic activity in the protocell. Surprisingly, size-dependent diffusion in crowded conditions yielded two distinct maxima for protein synthesis, reflecting the differential impact of crowding on transcription and translation. Our experimental data show, for the first time, that macromolecular crowding induces a switch from reaction to diffusion control and that this switch depends on the sizes of the macromolecules involved. These results highlight the need to control the physical environment in the design of synthetic cells.
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