Toward Giving Artificial Cells The Ability To Move

Tadashi Sugawara and colleagues note that efforts to make artificial cells have focused partly on genetics and enabling such cells -- which could become biofuel factories and other technological advances -- to reproduce. Sugawara's group previously reported a self-reproducing lipid capsule in JACS. Scientists in the United States recently announced successful transplantation of a bacterial genome, an achievement described as a major step toward creating synthetic forms of life.

The new study focuses on "another essential and perhaps more fundamental characteristic of cells, the ability to move." In laboratory experiments, the researchers showed that an oil droplet, used to represent an artificial cell, underwent sustained movement through a chemical solution for several minutes until finally coming to a stop.

In doing so, the researchers say, the droplet demonstrated a "primitive form of chemotaxis," one of the most basic cellular responses in which the cell directs its movement toward the presence of certain chemicals in its environment. The study could provide a blueprint for designing future locomotion systems for artificial cells, the scientists suggest.

Article: "Fatty Acid Chemistry at the Oil-Water Interface: Self-Propelled Oil Droplets"