RT Journal Article
T1 From Nano to Micro Polyion Complex Vesicles: Synthetic Cells with Membrane-Embedded Enzymes
A1 Jiménez López, Celia
A1 López-Blanco, Roi
A1 Esperón Abril, Iria
A1 Fernández Megía, Eduardo
K1 Dendrimer
K1 Polyion complex vesicle
K1 PICsome
K1 Synthetic cell
K1 Hierarchical transfer
AB Synthetic cells are emerging as cornerstone in our understanding of prebiotic forms of early life and the development of therapeutics. Although several types of vesicles have been proposed for this purpose, their development is often hampered by limited membrane permeability. On the other hand, polyion complex vesicles (PICsomes) with a high permeability for small molecules suffer from a small size (typically sub-200 nm) and low encapsulation efficiency of enzymes (less than 4%). Herein, we describe the peripheral charge density of dendrimers and the ionic strength of the medium as powerful tools in the size tuning of PICsomes via a dendrimer-to-PIC hierarchical transfer of structural information. PICsomes beyond the micron range were readily obtained from a single dendrimer generation (G) and their ability to emulate life-like technologies explored through chemical communication. As opposed to the low protein encapsulation in the lumen of classical PICsomes, a selective enzyme embedding in the PIC membrane was revealed with efficiencies up to 85%. Notably, membrane-embedded enzymes retain high catalytic activity (85% relative to free enzymes), even in the presence of proteases, enabling fast enzymatic cascades between synthetic cell populations.
PB ACS
SN 1944-8244
YR 2025
FD 2025-08-10
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/43060
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/43060
LA eng
NO Jimenez-Lopez, C., Lopez-Blanco, R., Esperon-Abril, I., and Fernandez-Megia, E. (2025). From nano to micro polyion complex vesicles: Synthetic cells with membrane-embedded enzymes. “ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces”, Vol. 17 (33), 47426-47435. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c11988
NO This work was supported by grants PID2021-127684OB-I00 and PID2024-162826OB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF “A way of making Europe”. The authors also thank financial support from Xunta de Galicia (ED431C 2022/21, and Centro de Investigación do Sistema Universitario de Galicia accreditation 2023-2027, ED431G 2023/03) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund - ERDF). The authors are grateful to Carlos Fernández Pereira for helpful discussions about the fitting of PIC size data to eqs 1–4. The authors thank María Teresa Bueno, Francisco Javier Chichón, and Rocío Arranz for cryo-TEM data collection at the CryoEM Facility of Centro Nacional de Biotecnología-CSIC (Madrid, Spain).
DS Minerva
RD 28 abr 2026