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Giant Vesicles as Microreactors for Enzymatic mRNA Synthesis
Author(s) -
Fischer Aline,
Franco Andrea,
Oberholzer Thomas
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/1439-7633(20020503)3:5<409::aid-cbic409>3.0.co;2-p
Subject(s) - microreactor , vesicle , protocell , nucleotide , context (archaeology) , chemistry , biophysics , t7 rna polymerase , artificial cell , rna , biochemistry , biology , membrane , gene , bacteriophage , catalysis , paleontology , escherichia coli
Giant vesicles have attracted much attention as possible microreactors for the conduction of enzymatic reactions in an artificial, cell‐sized compartment. In this context, we demonstrated in the first part of the present work that giant vesicles formed from 1‐palmitoyl‐2‐oleoyl‐ sn ‐glycero‐3‐phosphocholine in an alternating electric field can be made more permeable to Ca 2+ ions or nucleotide triphosphates by addition of ethanol. This methodology is then applied in a second step whereby these giant vesicles are used as microreactors in which mRNA synthesis can occur. The macromolecules (the DNA template and the enzyme T7 RNA polymerase) are microinjected into a selected giant vesicle, while the substrate molecules (nucleotide triphosphates) are added from the external medium. The fact that mRNA synthesis can be detected is a further step towards our aim: the design of a microreactor that can be seen as a model for a protocell.