Biomachines in Synthetic Biology

Dear Colleagues,

From its ambitious start in metabolic engineering and biotechnology, synthetic biology has blossomed to encompass many aspects of bioengineering and continues to attract practitioners from far-flung disciplines. This interdisciplinary, and in fact transdisciplinary, field endeavours to bring together scientists, engineers, and sometimes laypersons of diverse backgrounds. Each collaborative project seeks to create new tools for extracting knowledge and for addressing biomedical problems, while looking to extant biological structures for inspiration. Two strategies have broadly guided these projects—the top-down and bottom-up approaches. Apart from metabolic engineering, the reverse-engineering aspects of the top-down approach allows us to define the structure–function relationship underlying various biological phenomena that we try to emulate. Such methods begin with live cells, as a source of material or structure, rather than as the subject in metabolic engineering, in the long process of synthesising functional biological constructs. They encompass the search for the minimal bacterial genome, the creation of proteoliposome-like systems from the evisceration and enucleation of cells, the use of cell membrane fragments to decorate synthetic vesicles, the fusion of extant biological systems, etc. There are also hybrid approaches that begin with whole cells solely as sources of material, i.e., cell derivatives, for use in bottom-up techniques. The extraction of lipids and proteins from archaeal and bacterial membranes of interest and their reconstitution into, or fusion with, model membranes exemplifies this approach. Through the purification and exploitation of extant biological structures, we elucidate the structural components, as well as principles, that allow specific biological phenomena to occur. These phenomena include receptor-mediated endocytosis, motility, inter-cell communication, pathogen-host communication, etc. This, in turn, allows us to design systems that emulate such behaviour using materials both natural and synthetic, for purposes as diverse as targeted drug delivery, pathogen capture, biosensing, etc. In this Special Issue, Biomachines in Synthetic Biology, we aim to curate works dedicated to the top-down approach in the production of artificial cells and protocells. We invite submissions that include reviews, both critical and tutorial, technical reports and perspectives. Help us create a collection that will guide the next generation of Synthetic Biologists!

Dr. Cherng-Wen Darren Tan
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schuster
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• biofabrication
• autopoiesis
• biomachines
• artificial organelles
• minimal cells
• novel treatments
• targeted delivery
• ghost cells
• proteoliposomes
• proteopolymersomes