Elements of a Vesicle Machine

尽管细胞被认为是生命的最小单位，但它们实际上是由更小的组件组成的，这些组件使它们能够执行自我修复，产生和利用能量等功能。这些成分由大量的蛋白质和脂质组成，它们是细胞的构建模块，实际上它们一起工作以创造更高水平的功能。一个有用的类比是一个城市和一个细胞。一座城市通常需要一堵墙（一层外层脂质膜）、发电厂（来自动物细胞的线粒体和来自植物细胞的叶绿体）、工厂和工程公司来修复城市基础设施（脂质体内平衡机制）。每个单元都由工人和机器（脂质和蛋白质）运行。在这个项目中，我们的目标是拆开细胞，但不是在工人的层面，而是在城市基础设施的层面，并以不同的组合将它们重新组合在一起，以期构建一个新的城市（新颖的自组装微米级机器）。我们将从细胞中“劫持”的这些成分将被安置在人工脂质囊泡中，这些囊泡将提供一个模拟细胞围栏和保护其基础设施的能力的外壳。目前还不知道哪些组件可以以这种方式耦合，这是我们的目标是探索。

Despite cells being thought of as the smallest unit of life, they are actually made up smaller components that give them the ability to perform functions such as self-repair, and produce and harness energy. These components consists of large collections of proteins and lipids, the building blocks of cells, that actually work together to create higher level functions. A useful analogy is that of a city and a cell. A city often requires a wall (an outer lipid membrane), power plants (mitochondria from animal cells, and chloroplasts from plant cells) and factories and engineering firms to repair the city infrastructure (lipid homeostatic machinery). Each of these units is run by workers and machinery (lipids and proteins).In this project, we aim to take apart cells, but not at the level of the workers , instead at the level of the city infrastructure and bring them back together in a different combination with a view to constructing a new city (novel self-assembling micron scale machinery). These components, that we will be 'hi-jacking' from cells will be housed within artificial lipid vesicles that will provide a housing which mimics the ability of cells to ring-fence and protect their infrastructure. It is not yet known which components can be coupled in this manner and this is something that we aim to explore.