ArticleNature communications2023
Creating complex protocells and prototissues using simple DNA building blocks.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 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
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pathway Controlled Phase Separation of Minimal Building Blocks Utilizing a Dissociative Chemical Transformation.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Bottom-Up Coacervate-Based Artificial Cells: Integrating Cellular Hallmarks into Complex Life-Like Systems.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- Reconfiguration of Multiphase Coacervate Droplets Into Self-Regulated Nested Artificial Cells.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Prototissues: Assembly strategies, collective behaviors, and emerging applications.Bioactive materials · 2026Review
- One-step construction of robust protocells and prototissues in water.Nature communications · 2026Article
- DNA Condensation-Inspired Assembly of DNA Nanotubes into Reversible Superstructures: A Base Pairing-Orthogonal Way to Create Rings, Bundles, or Vast Networks.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- A Photonastic Prototissue Capable of Photo-Mechano-Chemical Transduction.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Article
- Strategies and applications of synthetic cell communication.Nature chemical biology · 2025Review
- Article
- Cytomimetic calcification in chemically self-regulated prototissues.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Genetic encoding and expression of RNA origami cytoskeletons in synthetic cells.Nature nanotechnology · 2025Article
- Programmed Fabrication of Vesicle-Based Prototissue Fibers with Modular Functionalities.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Synthetic Biology-Based Engineering Cells for Drug Delivery.Exploration (Beijing, China) · 2025Review
- Cytoskeleton-functionalized synthetic cells with life-like mechanical features and regulated membrane dynamicity.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- Remodeling of lipid-foam prototissues by network-wide tension fluctuations induced by active particles.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Growing functional artificial cytoskeletons in the viscoelastic confinement of DNA synthetic cells.Nature chemical engineering · 2025Article
- Supramolecular fibrillation in coacervates and other confined systems towards biomimetic function.Communications chemistry · 2024Review
- 3D DNA origami pincers that multitask on giant unilamellar vesicles.Science advances · 2024Article
- Designer peptide-DNA cytoskeletons regulate the function of synthetic cells.Nature chemistry · 2024Article
- DNA-empowered synthetic cells as minimalistic life forms.Nature reviews. Chemistry · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Building synthetic protocells and prototissues hinges on the formation of biomimetic skeletal frameworks. Recreating the complexity of cytoskeletal and exoskeletal fibers, with their widely varying dimensions, cellular locations and functions, represents a major material hurdle and intellectual challenge which is compounded by the additional demand of using simple building blocks to ease fabrication and control. Here we harness simplicity to create complexity by assembling structural frameworks from subunits that can support membrane-based protocells and prototissues. We show that five oligonucleotides can anneal into nanotubes or fibers whose tunable thicknesses and lengths spans four orders of magnitude. We demonstrate that the assemblies' location inside protocells is controllable to enhance their mechanical, functional and osmolar stability. Furthermore, the macrostructures can coat the outside of protocells to mimic exoskeletons and support the formation of millimeter-scale prototissues. Our strategy could be exploited in the bottom-up design of synthetic cells and tissues, to the generation of smart material devices in medicine.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.