The effect of lipid composition on synthetic cell activity

One of the greatest challenges in drug development field is minimizing the medicine`s side effects on the patient. A novel approach intends to create a platform in which the drug will be synthesized exclusively at the diseased tissue. Synthetic cells (SCs) are artificial units with cell-like functionality that could serve as micro bio-reactors in which biological drugs synthesis will occur. The protein production is based on a defined engineered DNA template and could take place when all the components of the cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) system are present. Achieving a better understanding of lipid composition effect on the synthetic cell`s activity could serve as a base for developing a controllable localized therapeutic procedure. As a part of this study, 10 membrane compositions were investigated using the water/oil emulsion method, from which only 3 resulted in successful SCs production. The activity of the chosen compositions was analyzed by several aspects. Synthetic cells composed of POPC:cholesterol (1:1) were found to be the most promising formulation for further synthetic cell development, enabling high CFPS system encapsulation and high protein production using the water/oil emulsion method.