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Instructed Assembly as Context‐Dependent Signaling for the Death and Morphogenesis of Cells
Author(s) -
Wang Huaimin,
Feng Zhaoqianqi,
Xu Bing
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201812998
Subject(s) - morphogenesis , microbiology and biotechnology , context (archaeology) , stromal cell , cancer cell , tumor microenvironment , chemistry , spheroid , biophysics , cell signaling , programmed cell death , signal transduction , biology , cancer , biochemistry , genetics , in vitro , cancer research , apoptosis , paleontology , gene
Context‐dependent signaling is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature, but ways to mimic the essence of these nano‐ and microscale dynamic molecular processes by noncovalent synthesis in the cellular environment have yet to be developed. Herein we present a dynamic continuum of noncovalent filaments formed by the instructed assembly (iA) of a supramolecular phosphoglycopeptide (sPGP) as context‐dependent signals for controlling the death and morphogenesis of cells. Specifically, ectophosphatase enzymes on cancer cells catalyze the formation of sPGP filaments to result in cell death; however, damping of the enzyme activity induces the formation 3D cell spheroids. Similarly, the ratio of stromal and cancer cells in a coculture can be used to modulate the expression of the ectophosphatase, so that the iA process leads to the formation of cell spheroids. The spheroids mimic the tumor microenvironment for drug screening.