Abstract:
It has been pointed out that primitive life forms require three components, (1) compartments, (2) self-replication of information molecule, and (3) self-replication of compartments (Szostak, Nature, 2001). While the former two are relative well studied (e.g. liposomes, RNA replicase, etc), the last aspect is often overlooked.
My talk will first overview various approaches to this "neglected pillar" of protocell research and introduce our approach using lipid vesicles: The conditions that allows vesicles to undergo various shape transformations are studied using microscopic techniques combined with microfluidic micro-environment control, which revealed thermodynamic nature (Free Energy Landscape, FEL) of vesicles shape transformation. We then envisaged if it is possible to construct externally-forced replicating vesicle system based on the findings. When multiple vesicles were electrically fused into a single vesicle, it spontaneously undergoes a spontaneous division-like deformation. By coupling temperature change and manual handling using optical tweezers, we successfully implemented an artificial growth-division cycle of lipid vesicles.
Lastly, we will present our 'ambitious' approach towards more biological implementation of self-replicating protocell system using lipid vesicles encapsulating protein expression system, a project funded by the EON Seed Grant.