Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41142504›Full record

ArticleNature chemical engineering2025

Growing functional artificial cytoskeletons in the viscoelastic confinement of DNA synthetic cells.

Weixiang Chen, Siyu Song, Avik Samanta, Soumya Sethi, Christoph Drees, Michael Kappl, Hans-Jürgen Butt, Andreas Walther

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature chemical engineering, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. DNA Condensates Enable Crosstalk-Free Operation of Identical DNA Computing Cascades.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026
    Article
  3. Review
  4. Phase Separation of Nucleic Acids: Mechanisms, Properties, and Applications.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026
    Review
  5. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Weixiang ChenLife-Like Materials and Systems, Department of Chemistry, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.ORCID 0009-0000-5518-0799
Siyu SongLife-Like Materials and Systems, Department of Chemistry, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Avik SamantaDepartment of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India.ORCID 0000-0001-5279-834X
Soumya SethiLife-Like Materials and Systems, Department of Chemistry, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Christoph DreesLife-Like Materials and Systems, Department of Chemistry, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-6083-3205
Michael KapplMax Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-7335-1707
Hans-Jürgen ButtMax Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany.ORCID 0000-0001-5391-2618
Andreas WaltherLife-Like Materials and Systems, Department of Chemistry, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany.ORCID 0000-0003-2170-3306

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Intracellular structures, such as cytoskeletons, form within a crowded cytoplasm with viscoelastic properties. While self-assembly in crowding is well studied, the effects of coupled viscoelastic environments remain elusive. Here we engineer all-DNA synthetic cells (SCs) with tunable viscoelastic interiors to investigate this phenomenon. We introduce facile DNA barcode engineering to selectively enrich DNA tiles with adjustable concentrations into SCs to form artificial cytoskeletons coupled to their interior. Distinct mechanistic differences in assembly occur compared with solution or simple crowding. Furthermore, we develop light, molecular and metabolic switches to direct structure formation and create self-sorted SC populations with distinct artificial cytoskeletons. These cytoskeletons strengthen SCs and support stable contacts with mammalian cells. By bridging molecular-scale DNA nanotube assembly with mesoscale condensate structures, our SCs provide a versatile platform to investigate self-assembly under viscoelastic confinement and to harness subcellular architectures for emerging applications.

Indexed as

Bioinspired materialsDNA nanotechnologySelf-assemblySoft materials

Identifiers

PMID41142504
PMCPMC12545198

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.