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Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors: From in vitro to in vivo Friday Speaker Abstracts
35
Reconstitution of Actomyosin Cortex and Adhesion-associated Proteins in Droplet-Based
Synthetic Cells
Barbara Haller
, Jan-Willi Janiesch, Ilia Platzman.Joachim Spatz,
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Cellular interactions with the extracellular matrix or other cells are involved in nearly every
cellular response in vivo. These responses, in turn, affect many facets of cell’s life including
directional migration, cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and gene expression. Therefore,
adhesion/interaction-mediated processes are playing a crucial role in physiological conditions as
well as in the regulation of a wide variety of disease states. To understand the complex interplay
of different extracellular and intracellular factors bottom-up synthetic approaches have become
increasingly important in modern cell biology. Towards this end, lot of efforts have been focused
on creation of protocell systems that are on the one hand mechanically and chemically stable and
easy to manipulate, and on the other hand possessing biologically relevant features in a reduced
molecular complexity.
In the lecture we will describe our bottom-up synthetic approaches to dissect complex cellular
adhesion-mediated processes by means of an automated, high-throughput droplet-based
microfluidic technology. Towards this end, water-in-oil nanostructured emulsion droplets
1,2
were
developed as cell-like compartments and the droplet-based microfluidic systems
3
were
implemented for precise delivery of cytoskeletal and adhesion-associated proteins. Similarly to
living cells, but with reduced molecular complexity, droplet-based cells showed the capability to
self-assemble different cytoskeletal networks and adhesion associated proteins. Furthermore, as a
consequence of the organization of an actomyosin network, droplet-based protocells showed
migration and self-propulsion. This developed protocell system has a strong potential to
contribute to the understanding of mechanisms underlying the ability of cells to perform
“intelligent” missions, such as acquiring, processing and responding to environmental
information.