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For life to emerge, the confinement of catalytic reactions within protocellular environments has been proposed to be a decisive aspect to regulate chemical activity in space 1 . Today, cells and organisms adapt to signals 2-6 by processing them through reaction networks that ultimately provide downstream functional responses and structural morphogenesis 7,8 . Re-enacting such signal processing in de novo-designed protocells is a profound challenge, but of high importance for understanding the design of adaptive systems with life-like traits. We report on engineered all-DNA protocells 9 harbouring an artificial metalloenzyme 10 whose olefin metathesis activity leads to downstream morphogenetic protocellular responses with varying levels of complexity. The artificial metalloenzyme catalyses the uncaging of a pro-fluorescent signal molecule that generates a self-reporting fluorescent metabolite designed to weaken DNA duplex interactions. This leads to pronounced growth, intraparticular functional adaptation in the presence of a fluorescent DNA mechanosensor 11 or interparticle protocell fusion. Such processes mimic chemically transduced processes found in cell adaptation and cell-to-cell adhesion. Our concept showcases new opportunities to study life-like behaviour via abiotic bioorthogonal chemical and mechanical transformations in synthetic protocells. Furthermore, it reveals a strategy for inducing complex behaviour in adaptive and communicating soft-matter microsystems, and it illustrates how dynamic properties can be upregulated and sustained in micro-compartmentalized media.

Functional and morphological adaptation in DNA protocells via signal processing prompted by artificial metalloenzymes