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Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells

Artificial cells are simple cell-like entities that possess certain properties of natural cells. In general, artificial cells are constructed using three parts: (1) biological membranes that serve as protective barriers, while allowing communication between the cells and the environment; (2) transcr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ding, Yunfeng, Wu, Fan, Tan, Cheemeng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4284483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25532531
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4041092
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author Ding, Yunfeng
Wu, Fan
Tan, Cheemeng
author_facet Ding, Yunfeng
Wu, Fan
Tan, Cheemeng
author_sort Ding, Yunfeng
collection PubMed
description Artificial cells are simple cell-like entities that possess certain properties of natural cells. In general, artificial cells are constructed using three parts: (1) biological membranes that serve as protective barriers, while allowing communication between the cells and the environment; (2) transcription and translation machinery that synthesize proteins based on genetic sequences; and (3) genetic modules that control the dynamics of the whole cell. Artificial cells are minimal and well-defined systems that can be more easily engineered and controlled when compared to natural cells. Artificial cells can be used as biomimetic systems to study and understand natural dynamics of cells with minimal interference from cellular complexity. However, there remain significant gaps between artificial and natural cells. How much information can we encode into artificial cells? What is the minimal number of factors that are necessary to achieve robust functioning of artificial cells? Can artificial cells communicate with their environments efficiently? Can artificial cells replicate, divide or even evolve? Here, we review synthetic biological methods that could shrink the gaps between artificial and natural cells. The closure of these gaps will lead to advancement in synthetic biology, cellular biology and biomedical applications.
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spelling pubmed-42844832015-01-21 Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells Ding, Yunfeng Wu, Fan Tan, Cheemeng Life (Basel) Review Artificial cells are simple cell-like entities that possess certain properties of natural cells. In general, artificial cells are constructed using three parts: (1) biological membranes that serve as protective barriers, while allowing communication between the cells and the environment; (2) transcription and translation machinery that synthesize proteins based on genetic sequences; and (3) genetic modules that control the dynamics of the whole cell. Artificial cells are minimal and well-defined systems that can be more easily engineered and controlled when compared to natural cells. Artificial cells can be used as biomimetic systems to study and understand natural dynamics of cells with minimal interference from cellular complexity. However, there remain significant gaps between artificial and natural cells. How much information can we encode into artificial cells? What is the minimal number of factors that are necessary to achieve robust functioning of artificial cells? Can artificial cells communicate with their environments efficiently? Can artificial cells replicate, divide or even evolve? Here, we review synthetic biological methods that could shrink the gaps between artificial and natural cells. The closure of these gaps will lead to advancement in synthetic biology, cellular biology and biomedical applications. MDPI 2014-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4284483/ /pubmed/25532531 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4041092 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Ding, Yunfeng
Wu, Fan
Tan, Cheemeng
Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title_full Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title_fullStr Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title_full_unstemmed Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title_short Synthetic Biology: A Bridge between Artificial and Natural Cells
title_sort synthetic biology: a bridge between artificial and natural cells
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4284483/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25532531
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4041092
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