Scientists have built a synthetic cell from nonliving chemical components that can feed, grow, and reproduce similarly to a natural cell.
The prototype, named SpudCell, is fragile and limited, but researchers say it marks an important step towards creating programmable cells for medicine, manufacturing, and environmental work.
Researchers view SpudCell as a basic platform that can be expanded and programmed for specific tasks.
Future synthetic cells could potentially support new cancer treatments, capture carbon from the atmosphere, or manufacture useful chemicals.
The technology could also help scientists determine the minimum chemical requirements needed for a functioning cell and provide clues about how life may have emerged from nonliving chemistry.
Because the cell is built from the bottom up, researchers could add safeguards directly to its genome. These controls could prevent future versions from surviving or reproducing outside approved environments.
Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota, and her team assembled the cell one component at a time.
Unlike modified biological cells, SpudCell was constructed from a fully defined mixture of chemicals and molecules. Researchers therefore know every ingredient and its concentration, making the cell easier to study and engineer.
The nonspecific cell is neither plant nor animal, although it most closely resembles a simple bacterium.
SpudCell contains between 150 and 200 molecules, compared with the millions or billions found inside biological cells. Its genome contains around 90,000 base pairs, far fewer than the 4.6 million base pairs found in E. coli.
SpudCell can feed, grow, and reproduce for around five generations.
Each generation takes approximately 12 hours at 30 degrees Celsius. By comparison, E. coli can divide every 30 minutes.
The synthetic cell also divides differently from natural cells. It does not contain the cytoskeleton that biological cells use as a structural framework.
Instead, SpudCell produces proteins that accumulate near its outer membrane. The growing pressure eventually forces the cell to split and form a daughter cell.
It cannot produce its own ribosomes, which cells use to make proteins. Researchers must therefore feed it ribosomes taken from E. coli, along with other required materials.
SpudCell resembles a natural cell but does not copy every biological process.
Researchers deliberately used some mechanisms that differ from those found in nature, showing that synthetic cells may not need to reproduce natural biology exactly to display life-like behaviour.
The cell can also respond to selection. When researchers introduced a genetic change that increased the production of a growth protein, the modified cells grew and divided faster.
However, the change did not occur through a spontaneous mutation, meaning SpudCell cannot yet be described as evolving.
SpudCell currently cannot produce anything useful and only reproduces when supplied with all the materials it needs, including ribosomes. It cannot survive independently outside controlled laboratory conditions.
Adamala and other researchers have established Biotic, a public-benefit organization that plans to make the technology available to scientists around the world.
The group wants SpudCell to serve as a shared platform for synthetic cell research, similar to an open-source operating system. Academic and nonprofit researchers would be able to use the core technology for free, while commercial users would pay licensing fees.
Researchers hope wider access will accelerate the development of more capable synthetic cells that could eventually perform practical medical, industrial, and environmental tasks.
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