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Materials science

Bubble wrap of cell-like aggregates

Nature volume 471, pages 172–173 (2011)Cite this article

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Using a microfluidic device, tiny polymeric capsules have been made in which different compounds can be isolated in separate, membrane-bound compartments — a prerequisite for the development of artificial cell aggregates.

Adding milk to coffee or tea leads to a homogeneous (and tasty) mixture, but how could one keep such fluids apart when they are combined? Aqueous fluids tend to flow and mix together even on the micrometre scale of biological cells, and so keeping such fluids apart requires a robust partition. Cells in tissues achieve this by using flexible membranes not only to define and delimit each cell, but also to compartmentalize their nuclei and other organelles. Reporting in Angewandte Chemie, Shum et al.1 describe similar hierarchical assemblies of synthetic cell-like structures, which use polymeric surfactants as the building blocks of membranes instead of natural lipids and proteins. These robust, deformable microcapsules adhere tightly to each other while confining distinct aqueous fluids, in the same way that cells cluster together in tissues while enclosing separate portions of cytoplasm.

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Figure 1: The synthesis of polymeric cell-like aggregates.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Takamasa Harada and Dennis E. Discher are in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.,

    Takamasa Harada & Dennis E. Discher

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  1. Takamasa Harada
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  2. Dennis E. Discher
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Correspondence to Dennis E. Discher.

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Harada, T., Discher, D. Bubble wrap of cell-like aggregates. Nature 471, 172–173 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471172a

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