School of Biosciences, The Krebs Institute, The University of Sheffieldgrid.11835.3e, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
J Bacteriol. 2022 Mar 15;204(3):e0034621. doi: 10.1128/JB.00346-21. Epub 2021 Oct 4.
Increasing efficiency is an important driving force behind cellular organization and often achieved through compartmentalization. Long recognized as a core principle of eukaryotic cell organization, its widespread occurrence in prokaryotes has only recently come to light. Despite the early discovery of a few microcompartments, such as gas vesicles and carboxysomes, the vast majority of these structures in prokaryotes are less than 100 nm in diameter-too small for conventional light microscopy and electron microscopic thin sectioning. Consequently, these smaller nanocompartments have been discovered serendipitously and then through bioinformatics shown to be broadly distributed. Their small uniform size, robust self-assembly, high stability, excellent biocompatibility, and large cargo capacity make them excellent candidates for biotechnology applications. This review will highlight our current knowledge of nanocompartments and the prospects for applications, as well as open questions and challenges that need to be addressed to fully understand these important structures.
提高效率是细胞组织的重要驱动力，通常通过分隔实现。分隔化长期以来被认为是真核细胞组织的核心原则，但其在原核生物中的广泛存在直到最近才被发现。尽管人们很早就发现了一些微区隔，如气室和羧化体，但原核生物中这些结构的绝大多数直径小于 100nm，太小而无法用传统的光学显微镜和电子显微镜切片观察。因此，这些较小的纳米区隔是偶然发现的，然后通过生物信息学显示它们广泛分布。它们的尺寸均匀、自组装稳定、稳定性高、生物相容性好、载物量大，是生物技术应用的理想选择。这篇综述将重点介绍我们目前对纳米区隔的认识及其应用前景，以及为了充分理解这些重要结构需要解决的问题和挑战。
