A Survey of Biological Building Blocks for Synthetic Molecular Communication Systems
A Survey of Biological Building Blocks for Synthetic Molecular Communication Systems
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DOI：
10.1109/comst.2020.3008819
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发表时间：
2020-01-01
影响因子：
35.6
通讯作者：
Sticht，Heinrich
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Soeldner，Christian A.;Socher，Eileen;Sticht，Heinrich
合成分子通信（MC）是一种新的通信工程范式，有望实现智能药物递送和实时健康监测等革命性应用。在纳米和微米尺度上设计和实现合成MC系统（MCS）是非常具有挑战性的。这对于采用生物组分作为发射器和接收器或作为与天然生物MCS的接口的合成MCS尤其如此。然而，由于这些生物成分已经被自然界优化了数十亿年，因此在合成MCS中使用它们是非常有前途的。本文提供了一个调查的生物成分，可以潜在地作为主要的积木，即，发射器，接收器和信令粒子，用于合成MCS的设计和实现。自然界使用各种不同大小的信号颗粒，并具有截然不同的特性，用于生物实体之间的通信。在这里，我们集中在三个重要类别的信号粒子：阳离子（特别是质子和钙离子），神经递质（特别是乙酰胆碱，多巴胺和血清素），和磷酸肽。这三类具有独特和不同的特征，例如它们的大扩散系数、它们的特异性和/或它们的信号传导独特性，这使它们成为合成MCS中信号传导颗粒的合适候选物。对于这些候选信号粒子中的每一个，我们提出了几个特定的发射器和接收器结构，主要建立在能够执行从MCS的发射器和接收器所需的不同生理功能的蛋白质上。此外，我们提出的选项，微尺度实施的MCS以及所需的实验评估MCS的微观到宏观的接口。使用蛋白质进行信号发射和检测的主要优点之一是，它们可以用合成生物学的工具进行修饰，并根据广泛的应用需求进行定制。我们详细讨论了所提出的合成MCS的生物构建块的性质、限制和应用。此外，我们概述了新的研究方向的建议发射机和接收机架构的实施和理论设计和分析。
Synthetic molecular communication (MC) is a new communication engineering paradigm which is expected to enable revolutionary applications such as smart drug delivery and real-time health monitoring. The design and implementation of synthetic MC systems (MCSs) at nano- and microscale is very challenging. This is particularly true for synthetic MCSs employing biological components as transmitters and receivers or as interfaces with natural biological MCSs. Nevertheless, since such biological components have been optimized by nature over billions of years, using them in synthetic MCSs is highly promising. This paper provides a survey of biological components that can potentially serve as the main building blocks, i.e., transmitter, receiver, and signaling particles, for the design and implementation of synthetic MCSs. Nature uses a large variety of signaling particles of different sizes and with vastly different properties for communication among biological entities. Here, we focus on three important classes of signaling particles: cations (specifically protons and calcium ions), neurotransmitters (specifically acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin), and phosphopeptides. These three classes have unique and distinct features such as their large diffusion coefficients, their specificity, and/or their uniqueness of signaling that make them suitable candidates for signaling particles in synthetic MCSs. For each of these candidate signaling particles, we present several specific transmitter and receiver structures mainly built upon proteins that are capable of performing the distinct physiological functionalities required from the transmitters and receivers of MCSs. Moreover, we present options for both microscale implementation of MCSs as well as the micro-to-macroscale interfaces needed for experimental evaluation of MCSs. One of the main advantages of employing proteins for signal emission and detection is that they can be modified with tools from synthetic biology and be tailored to a wide range of application needs. We discuss the properties, limitations, and applications of the proposed biological building blocks for synthetic MCSs in detail. Furthermore, we outline new research directions for the implementation and the theoretical design and analysis of the proposed transmitter and receiver architectures.