NANOCELL

NANOCELL的任务是设计细胞的仿生分子机器，作为构建块，可以强大而灵活地组装成具有自然界中不存在的可控功能的纳米细胞。为了实现这一目标，我们将把大自然的细胞机器拆开，并探索它们的潜力，以新的方式重建它们。类似于分子工厂的合成“NANOCELL”是推动该项目的一个强大愿景。在其第一步，NANOCELL将掌握以下自然发展的生物分子机器的控制，(i) f1o -ATP合成酶，（ii） ATP驱动的核酸转运机，（iii） ATP合成酶驱动的螺旋桨，（iv）质子驱动的药物，溶质和肽转运体，以及(v)光谱调谐的光驱动质子泵。这些机器中的大多数都有一个共同点，即它们的结构和机制和/或它们的功能最近都以前所未有的精度进行了表征，这就有机会继续使用这种工程方法。通过合成生物学的方法，我们将把这些机器重组成稳定的合成囊泡。可以为生物分子机器提供动力的质子梯度将由光谱可调的光驱动质子泵细菌和变形视紫红质产生。短期目标是制定策略来操纵和设计单个生物分子机器，作为建立纳米细胞的基石。将建立它们重组为合成囊泡的程序，以构建未来纳米细胞的框架。从长远来看，我们打算使用这些工程构建块中的几个来创建复杂的纳米细胞。通过这种建立工程构建块的方法，我们可以使纳米细胞功能化，例如，产生一个质子梯度，引导药物、肽、DNA或溶质的摄取或释放，或者物理地移动纳米细胞。它也被认为是光谱调谐质子梯度合成ATP用于纳米细胞内的最小代谢过程。

The mission of NANOCELL is to engineer biomimetic molecular machineries of the cell as building blocks that can be robustly and flexibly assembled to nanocells with controllable functionality not found in nature. To approach this goal, we will take nature’s cellular machineries apart and explore their potential to reconstitute them in new ways. The synthetic ‘NANOCELL’ resembling a molecular factory is one strong vision that drives the project. In its first step NANOCELL will master the control of the following biomolecular machines developed by nature, (i) F1Fo-ATP synthases, (ii) ATP-driven nucleic acid translocating machines, (iii) ATP synthase based propellers, (iv) proton-driven drug, solute and peptide transporters, and (v) spectrally tuned light-driven proton pumps. Most of these machines have in common that either their structure and mechanism and/or their function have been characterized to unprecedented accuracy very recently, which bears the chance to move on now to this engineering approach. From a synthetic biology approach we will reconstitute these machines into stable synthetic vesicles. Proton gradients that either power biomolecular machines will be generated by spectrally tunable light-driven proton pumps bacterio- and proteorhodopsins. Short-term goals are to develop strategies to manipulate and engineer the individual biomolecular machines to be used as building blocks to establish a NANOCELL. Procedures for their reconstitution into synthetic vesicles building the frame of the future NANOCELL will be established. In the long-term, we intend to use several of these engineered building blocks to create complex NANOCELLS. With this approach of establishing engineered building blocks we can functionalize NANOCELLS to generate, for example, a proton-gradient that guides the uptake or release of drugs, peptides, DNA, or solutes or to physically move the NANOCELL. It is also thought to spectrally tune proton-gradients to synthesize ATP used for minimal metabolic processes within the NANOCELL.