School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering (Ministry of Education), Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin) , Tianjin University , Tianjin 300072 , China.
Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering , Cornell University , Ithaca , New York 14853 , United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Sep 5;10(35):29308-29313. doi: 10.1021/acsami.8b09324. Epub 2018 Aug 23.
Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) is a robust platform for the simple, rapid, and cost-effective in vitro production of proteins, as well as an important tool for cell-free synthetic biology research. Here, a microfluidic clay microgel system is reported, which creates compartmentalized microenvironments for CFPS capable of high-yield and repeated protein synthesis, as well as an artificial cell-like structure. As an advantageous platform for CFPS, a modular manner to prepare clay microgels with rationally designed functions is demonstrated: (i) gene/clay microgels enhance protein expression, (ii) gene/clay/magnetic nanoparticle microgels enable a repeated protein production system, and (iii) gene/clay microgels in microfluidic droplets serve as a cell-like structure. Beyond CFPS, considering the compatibility of clay microgels with hydrophilic functional materials, our clay microgels will provide a more general platform for preparing a variety of functional materials such as encapsulating drugs and cells, enabling more biomedical applications.
无细胞蛋白质合成 (CFPS) 是一种强大的平台，可用于简单、快速且经济高效地体外生产蛋白质，也是无细胞合成生物学研究的重要工具。在这里，报道了一种微流控粘土微凝胶系统，该系统为 CFPS 创建了分隔的微环境，能够实现高产和重复的蛋白质合成以及人工类似细胞的结构。作为 CFPS 的有利平台，展示了一种以模块化方式制备具有合理设计功能的粘土微凝胶的方法：(i) 基因/粘土微凝胶增强蛋白质表达，(ii) 基因/粘土/磁性纳米颗粒微凝胶使可重复的蛋白质生产系统成为可能，以及 (iii) 微流控液滴中的基因/粘土微凝胶作为类似细胞的结构。除 CFPS 之外，考虑到粘土微凝胶与亲水性功能材料的兼容性，我们的粘土微凝胶将为制备各种功能材料（如封装药物和细胞）提供更通用的平台，从而实现更多的生物医学应用。
