ArticleNature communications2022
In vitro assembly, positioning and contraction of a division ring in minimal cells.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed.
- Devising a divisome for synthetic cells.Nature reviews. Chemistry · 2026Review
- Automated synthetic cell-based screening for designed proteins with emergent functions.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Spontaneous Curvature Sculpts Filament-Vesicle Morphogenesis.Nano letters · 2026Article
- Image-based phenotypic sorting of synthetic cells.Science advances · 2026Article
- Peptide-based artificial cytoskeleton enhances colocalized cascade reactions in cell-like microreactors.Chemical science · 2026Article
- DNA affects the phenotype of fuel-dependent coacervate droplets.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Optimizing spatial organization of FtsZ rings for large-scale constriction in synthetic cells.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Spatially regulated mRNA translation enables functional membrane protein integration in synthetic cells.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Autonomous biogenesis of all thirty proteins of the Escherichia coli translation machinery.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Synthetic cells by the numbers.iScience · 2025Review
- Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy for particle sizing: A notorious challenge.Biophysical journal · 2025Review
- Reconstituting alternative life using the test-bed of cell-free systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Flippase-Mediated Hybrid Vesicle Division.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Article
- Simultaneous in vitro expression of minimal 21 transfer RNAs by tRNA array method.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Building a Synthetic Cell Together.Nature communications · 2025Review
- Sustainable regeneration of 20 aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in a reconstituted system toward self-synthesizing artificial systems.Science advances · 2025Article
- A programmable biomimetic cytoskeleton.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- Transition from alternating stripes to alternating labyrinths in oscillatory media.Physical review. E · 2025Article
- Self-growing protocell models in aqueous two-phase system induced by internal DNA replication reaction.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Constructing a minimal machinery for autonomous self-division of synthetic cells is a major goal of bottom-up synthetic biology. One paradigm has been the E. coli divisome, with the MinCDE protein system guiding assembly and positioning of a presumably contractile ring based on FtsZ and its membrane adaptor FtsA. Here, we demonstrate the full in vitro reconstitution of this machinery consisting of five proteins within lipid vesicles, allowing to observe the following sequence of events in real time: 1) Assembly of an isotropic filamentous FtsZ network, 2) its condensation into a ring-like structure, along with pole-to-pole mode selection of Min oscillations resulting in equatorial positioning, and 3) onset of ring constriction, deforming the vesicles from spherical shape. Besides demonstrating these essential features, we highlight the importance of decisive experimental factors, such as macromolecular crowding. Our results provide an exceptional showcase of the emergence of cell division in a minimal system, and may represent a step towards developing a synthetic cell.
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