Engineering novel cell mimetic membrane architectures

工程新型细胞模拟膜结构

• 批准号: 2281983
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2281983
• 关键词: Engineering; novel; cell; mimetic; membrane

Cell mimicry - the ability to imitate the physical architecture, function and behaviour of cells - is proving to be an increasingly useful conceptual framework in (i) furthering our understanding of biological systems and (ii) constructing novel bio-inspired devices for clinical and industrial applications. The ability to generate membrane-based structures is proving to be especially powerful in both respects. However, the field has reached an impasse: although plasma membrane mimics are well established, mimics of alternative membrane structures are lacking. In this project, a suite of droplet-based technologies to assemble, manipulate, and functionalise synthetic analogues of a repertoire of membranous motifs - including synapses, nuclear envelopes and double membranes - will be developed, and their biophysical properties characterised. This will lead to a step change in our ability to generate artificial cell systems from the bottom up, allowing us to reproduce features associated with intra-cellular compartmentalisation and inter-cellular communication. This project is multidisciplinary, incorporating elements of chemical biology, microfluidics, biophysics and biointerface science.

细胞模拟--模拟细胞的物理结构、功能和行为的能力--正被证明是一种越来越有用的概念框架，可用于(I)加深我们对生物系统的理解和(Ii)构建用于临床和工业应用的新型生物启发设备。事实证明，产生基于薄膜的结构的能力在这两个方面都特别强大。然而，这一领域已经陷入僵局：尽管质膜模拟物已经很好地建立起来了，但缺乏对替代膜结构的模拟物。在这个项目中，将开发一套基于液滴的技术，以组装、操纵和功能化一系列膜基序的合成类似物--包括突触、核膜和双膜--并表征它们的生物物理性质。这将导致我们自下而上产生人造细胞系统的能力发生阶段性变化，使我们能够复制与细胞内区隔和细胞间通信相关的特征。这个项目是多学科的，融合了化学生物学、微流体学、生物物理学和生物界面科学的元素。