Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors

Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors: From in vitro to in vivo Friday Speaker Abstracts

Reconstitution of Actomyosin Cortex and Adhesion-associated Proteins in Droplet-Based Synthetic Cells Barbara Haller , Jan-Willi Janiesch, Ilia Platzman.Joachim Spatz, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Cellular interactions with the extracellular matrix or other cells are involved in nearly every cellular response in vivo. These responses, in turn, affect many facets of cell’s life including directional migration, cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and gene expression. Therefore, adhesion/interaction-mediated processes are playing a crucial role in physiological conditions as well as in the regulation of a wide variety of disease states. To understand the complex interplay of different extracellular and intracellular factors bottom-up synthetic approaches have become increasingly important in modern cell biology. Towards this end, lot of efforts have been focused on creation of protocell systems that are on the one hand mechanically and chemically stable and easy to manipulate, and on the other hand possessing biologically relevant features in a reduced molecular complexity. In the lecture we will describe our bottom-up synthetic approaches to dissect complex cellular adhesion-mediated processes by means of an automated, high-throughput droplet-based microfluidic technology. Towards this end, water-in-oil nanostructured emulsion droplets 1,2 were developed as cell-like compartments and the droplet-based microfluidic systems 3 were implemented for precise delivery of cytoskeletal and adhesion-associated proteins. Similarly to living cells, but with reduced molecular complexity, droplet-based cells showed the capability to self-assemble different cytoskeletal networks and adhesion associated proteins. Furthermore, as a consequence of the organization of an actomyosin network, droplet-based protocells showed migration and self-propulsion. This developed protocell system has a strong potential to contribute to the understanding of mechanisms underlying the ability of cells to perform “intelligent” missions, such as acquiring, processing and responding to environmental information.

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