19-BBSRC-NSF/BIO

该合作项目的目标是利用Vollmer实验室（英国埃克塞特大学）开发的尖端传感器技术，将其应用于Noireaux实验室（美国明尼苏达大学）开发的遗传编程合成细胞，以促进我们对活细胞膜蛋白功能的基本理解。模拟特定生物功能的合成细胞的自下而上的构建具有强大的前景，可以作为与人类健康和环境相关的社会问题的潜在解决方案。虽然在不久的将来可以实现功能性最小细胞的工程化，但还需要合成细胞的基本方法来扩大我们的工程能力。当前最新技术水平的一个严重限制是缺乏如何稳健地开发和表征具有活性膜功能的合成细胞的基本知识。将膜功能整合到合成细胞中需要对膜-蛋白质相互作用和动力学的基本方面的定量理解。这种分析是最佳的，当它是直接在一个最小的细胞设置，膜蛋白动态合成和功能插入到脂质双层，如本项目中提出的非侵入性技术进行。通过将最先进的单分子可视化技术放置在动态活跃的合成细胞旁边，这项合作将研究自然界如何组装由蛋白质制成的分子纳米机器。这些纳米机器在生命系统中发挥重要作用，如催化，细胞信号传导，它们赋予细胞形状和结构。

The goal of this collaborative project is to advance our fundamental understanding of membrane protein functions in live cells using a cutting-edge sensor technology developed in Vollmer's lab (Exeter University, UK) applied to genetically programmed synthetic cells developed in the Noireaux' lab (University of Minnesota, USA). The bottom-up construction of synthetic cells that emulate specific biological functions holds strong promises as potential solutions to societal problems related to human health and the environment. While engineering functional minimal cells could be achieved in the near future, fundamental approaches to synthetic cells are also needed to expand our engineering capabilities. A serious limitation in the current state-of-the-art is the lack of basic knowledge of how synthetic cells with active membrane functions can be robustly developed and characterized. Integrating membrane functions into synthetic cells requires a quantitative understanding of basic aspects of membrane-protein interactions and dynamics. This analysis is optimal when it is performed with non-invasive techniques directly in a minimal cell setting where membrane proteins are dynamically synthesized and functionally inserted into the lipid bilayer, as proposed in this project. By placing a state-of-the art single molecule visualisation technique right next to a dynamically active synthetic cell, this collaboration will investigate how nature assembles molecular nanomachines made of proteins. These nanomachines take on important function in living systems such as catalysis, cell signalling, and they give the cell its shape and structure.