Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-06T06:29:23.797Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

21 - Approaches to semi-synthetic minimal cells: a review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Mark A. Bedau  and
Carol E. Cleland
By
Pier Luigi Luisi ,
Francesca Ferri  and
Pasquale Stano
Mark A. Bedau
Affiliation:
Reed College, Oregon
Carol E. Cleland
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder
Get access

Summary

THE NOTION OF MINIMAL CELL

The simplest living cells existing on Earth have several hundred genes, with hundreds of expressed proteins, which, more or less simultaneously, catalyse hundreds of reactions within the same tiny compartment—an amazing enormous complexity.

This picture elicits the question of whether or not such complexity is really essential for life, or whether or not cellular life might be possible with a much smaller number of components. This question is also borne out of considerations on early cells, which could not have been as complex. The enormous complexity of modern cells is probably the result of billions of years of evolution in which a series of defence and security mechanisms, redundancies and metabolic loops (which, in highly permissive conditions, were probably not necessary) was developed. These considerations led to the notion of minimal cell, now broadly defined as a cell having the minimal and sufficient number of components to be considered alive. This automatically precedes the next fundamental, but complex, question, “What does ‘alive’: mean?” One may choose quite a general definition, defining life at a cellular level as the concomitance of three basic properties: self-maintenance (metabolism), self-reproduction and evolvability (Fig. 21.1).

Evolvability is a Darwinian notion. As such, it refers to populations rather than individual cells. Consequently, one should take into consideration an entire family of minimal cells in the stream of environmental pressure and corresponding genetic evolution.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Nature of Life
Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science
 , pp. 272 - 288
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bachmann, P. A., Luisi, P. L., & Lang, J. (1992). Autocatalytic self-replicating micelles as models for prebiotic structures. Nature, 357, 57–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berclaz, N., Mueller, M., Walde, P., & Luisi, P. L. (2001). Growth and transformation of vesicles studied by ferritin labeling and cryotransmission electron microscopy. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 105, 1056–1064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloechliger, E., Blocher, M., Walde, P., & Luisi, P. L. (1998). Matrix effect in the size distribution of fatty acid vesicles. Journal of Physical Chemistry, 102, 10,383–10,390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderone, C. T. & Liu, D. R. (2004). Nucleic-acid-templated synthesis as a model system for ancient translation. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 8, 645–653.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cello, J., Paul, A. V., & Wimmer, E. (2002). Chemical synthesis of poliovirus cDNA: generation of infectious virus in the absence of natural template. Science, 297, 1016–1018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakrabarti, A. C, Breaker, R. R., Joyce, G. F., & Deamer, D. W. (1994). Production of RNA by a polymerase protein encapsulated within phospholipid vesicles. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 39, 555–559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyson, F. J. (1982). A model for the origin of life. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 18, 344–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, A., Franco, A., & Oberholzer, T. (2002). Giant vesicles as microreactors for enzymatic mRNA synthesis. ChemBioChem, 3, 409–417.3.0.CO;2-P>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, C. M., Gocayne, J. D., White, O., et al. (1995). The minimal gene complement of Mycoplasma genitalium. Science, 270, 397–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frick, D. N. & Richardson, C. C. (2001). DNA primases. Annual Review of Biochemistry, 70, 39–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gavrilova, L. P., Kostiashkina, O. E., Koteliansky, V. E., Rutkevitch, N. M., & Spirin, A. (1976). Factor-free (non-enzymic) and factor-dependent systems of translation of polyuridylic acid by Escherichia coli ribosomes. Journal of Molecular Biology, 101, 537–552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gil, R., Sabater-Munoz, B., Latorre, A., Silva, F. J., & Moya, A. (2002). Extreme genome reduction in Buchnera spp: Toward the minimal genome needed for symbiotic life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 4454–4458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gil, R., Silva, F. J., Peretó, J., & Moya, A. (2004). Determination of the core of a minimal bacteria gene set. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 68, 518–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glade, N., Demongeot, J., & Tabony, J. (2004). Microtubule self-organization by reaction-diffusion processes causes collective transport and organization of cellular particles. BMC Cell Biology, 5, 23. DOI 10.1186/1471–2121–5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, C. A., Peterson, S. N., Gill, S. R., et al. (1999). Global transposon mutagenesis and a minimal Mycoplasma genome. Science, 286, 2165–2169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishikawa, K., Sato, K., Shima, Y., Urabe, I., & Yomo, T. (2004). Expression of a cascading genetic network within liposomes. FEBS Letters, 576, 387–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Islas, S., Becerra, A., Luisi, P. L., & Lazcano, A. (2004). Comparative genomics and the gene complement of a minimal cell. Origin of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 34, 243–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Itaya, M. (1995). An estimation of the minimal genome size required for life. FEBS Letters, 362, 257–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jay, D. & Gilbert, W. (1987). Basic protein enhances the encapsulation of DNA into lipid vesicles: Model for the formation of primordial cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 84, 1978–1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolisnychenko, V., Plunkett, G., Herring, C. D., et al. (2002). Engineering a reduced Escherichia coli genome. Genome Research, 12, 640–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koonin, E. V. (2000). How many genes can make a cell: The minimal-gene-set concept. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 1, 99–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koonin, E. V. (2003). Comparative genomics, minimal gene-sets and the last universal common ancestor. National Review of Microbiology, 1, 127–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koster, G., Duijn, M., Hofs, B., & Dogterom, M. (2003). Membrane tube formation from giant vesicles by dynamic association of motor proteins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 15,583–15,588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazcano, A., Guerriero, R., Margulius, L., & Oró, J. (1988). The evolutionary transition from RNA to DNA in early cells. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 27, 283–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazcano, A., Valverde, V., Hernandez, G., Gariglio, P., Fox, G. E., & Oró, J. (1992). On the early emergence of reverse transcription: Theoretical basis and experimental evidence. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 35, 524–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lonchin, S., Luisi, P. L., Walde, P., & Robinson, B. H. (1999). A matrix effect in mixed phospholipid/fatty acid vesicle formation. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 103, 10,910–10,916.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luci, P. (2003). Gene cloning expression and purification of membrane proteins. ETH-Z Dissertation No. 15108, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich.
Luisi, P. L. (2002). Toward the engineering of minimal living cells. Anatomical Record, 268, 208–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luisi, P. L. (2003). Autopoiesis: A review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften, 90, 49–59.Google Scholar
Luisi, P. L., & Varela, F. J. (1990). Self-replicating micelles—A chemical version of minimal autopoietic systems. Origin of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 19, 633–643.Google Scholar
Luisi, P. L., Oberholzer, T., & Lazcano, A. (2002). The notion of a DNA minimal cell: A general discourse and some guidelines for an experimental approach. Helvetica Chimica Acta, 85, 1759–1777.3.0.CO;2-7>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luisi, P. L., Stano, P., Rasi, S., & Mavelli, F. (2004). A possible route to prebiotic vesicle reproduction. Artificial Life, 10, 297–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marchi-Artzner, V., Jullien, L., Belloni, L., Raison, D., Lacombe, L., & Lehn, J. M. (1996). Interaction, lipid exchange, and effect of vesicle size in systems of oppositely charged vesicles. Journal of Physical Chemistry, 100, 13,844–13,856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monnard, P. A. (2003). Liposome-entrapped polymerases as models for microscale/nanoscale bioreactors. Journal of Membrane Biology, 191, 87–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morowitz, H. J. (1967). Biological self-replicating systems. Progress in Theoretical Biology, 1, 35–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mushegian, A. (1999). The minimal genome concept. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development, 9, 709–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mushegian, A. & Koonin, E. V. (1996). A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 93, 10,268–10,273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nissen, P., Hansen, J., Ban, N., Moore, P. B., & Steitz, T. A. (2000). The structural basis of ribosome activity in peptide bond synthesis. Science, 289, 920–930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noireaux, V. & Libchaber, A. (2004). A vesicle bioreactor as a step toward an artificial cell assembly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 17,669–17,674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noireaux, V., Bar-Ziv, R., & Libchaber, A. (2003). Principles of cell-free genetic circuit assembly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 12,672–12,677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nomura, S. M., Tsumoto, K., Hamada, T., Akiyoshi, K., Nakatani, Y., & Yoshikawa, K. (2003). Gene expression within cell-sized lipid vesicles. ChemBioChem, 4, 1172–1175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oberholzer, T. & Luisi, P. L. (2002). The use of liposomes for constructing cell models. Journal of Biological Physics, 28, 733–744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oberholzer, T., Albrizio, M., & Luisi, P. L. (1995). Polymerase chain reaction in liposomes. Chemistry and Biology, 2, 677–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oberholzer, T., Wick, R., Luisi, P. L., & Biebricher, C. K. (1995). Enzymatic RNA replication in self-reproducing vesicles: An approach to a minimal cell. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 207, 250–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oberholzer, T., Nierhaus, K. H., & Luisi, P. L. (1999). Protein expression in liposomes. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 261, 238–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ono, N. & Ikegami, T. (2000). Self-maintenance and self-reproduction in an abstract cell model. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 206, 243–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pantazatos, D. P. & MacDonald, R. C. (1999). Directly observed membrane fusion between oppositely charged phospholipids bilayers. Journal of Membrane Biology, 170, 27–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, N. & Joyce, G. F. (2002). A self-replicating ligase ribozyme. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 12,733–12,740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pietrini, A. V. & Luisi, P. L. (2004). Cell-free protein synthesis through solubilisate exchange in water/oil emulsion compartments. ChemBioChem, 5, 1055–1062.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pohorille, A. & Deamer, D. (2002). Artificial cells: Prospects for biotechnology. Trends in Biotechnology, 20, 123–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasi, S., Mavelli, F., & Luisi, P. L. (2003). Cooperative micelle binding and matrix effect in oleate vesicle formation. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 107, 14,068–14,076.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roux, A., Cappello, G., Cartaud, J., Prost, J., Goud, B., & Bassereau, P. (2002). A minimal system allowing tubulation with molecular motors pulling on giant liposomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 5394–5399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankararaman, S., Menon, G. I., & Kumar, P. B. (2004). Self-organized pattern formation in motor-microtubule mixtures. Physical Review E, 70, 031905. DOI 10.1103/PhysRevE.70.031905.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidli, P. K., Schurtenberger, P., & Luisi, P. L. (1991). Liposome-mediated enzymatic synthesis of phosphatidylcholine as an approach to self-replicating liposomes. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 113, 8127–8130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimkets, L. J. (1998). Structure and sizes of genomes of the Archaea and Bacteria. In Bruijn, F. J., Lupskin, J. R., and Weinstock, G. M. (Eds.), Bacterial genomes: physical structure and analysis (pp 5–11). Boston, MA: Kluwer.
Spirin, A. (1986). Ribosome structure and protein synthesis. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings.
Stamatatos, L., Leventis, R., Zuckermann, M. J., & Silvius, J. R. (1988). Interactions of cationic lipid vesicles with negatively charged phospholipid vesicles and biological membranes. Biochemistry, 27, 3917–3925.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suttle, D. P. & Ravel, J. M. (1974). The effects of initiation factor 3 on the formation of 30S initiation complexes with synthetic and natural messengers. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 57, 386–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szathmáry, E. (2005). Life: In search of the simplest cell. Nature, 433, 469–470. DOI 10.1038/433469a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szostak, J. W., Bartel, D. P., & Luisi, P. L. (2001). Synthesizing life. Nature, 409, 387–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, C F. & Luisi, P. L. (2004). Novel properties of DDAB: Matrix effect and interaction with oleate. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 108, 11,285–11,290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsumoto, K., Nomura, S. M., Nakatani, Y., & Yoshikawa, K. (2001). Giant liposome as a biochemical reactor: Transcription of DNA and transportation by laser tweezers. Langmuir, 17, 7225–7228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varela, F., Maturana, H. R., & Uribe, R. B. (1974). Autopoiesis: The organization of living system, its characterization and a model. Biosystems, 5, 187–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walde, P., Goto, A., Monnard, P. A., Wessicken, M., & Luisi, P. L. (1994). Oparin's reactions revisited: Enzymatic synthesis of poly (adenylic acid) in micelles and self-reproducing vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 116, 7541–7544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walde, P., Wick, R., Fresta, M., Mangone, A., & Luisi, P. L. (1994). Autopoietic self-reproduction of fatty acid vesicles. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 116, 11,649–11,654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiner, A. M. & Maizels, N. (1987). tRNA-like structures tag the 3 ends of genomic RNA molecules for replication: Implications for the origin of protein synthesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 84, 7383–7387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woese, C. R. (1983). The primary lines of descent and the universal ancestor. In Bendall, D. S. (Ed.), Evolution from molecules to man (pp. 209–233). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Yu, W., Sato, K., Wakabayashi, M., et al. (2001). Synthesis of functional protein in liposome. Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, 92, 590–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, B. & Cech, T. R. (1998). Peptidyl-transferase ribozymes: Trans reactions, structural characterization and ribosomal RNA-like features. Chemical Biology, 5, 539–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmer, C. (2003). Tinker, tailor: Can Venter stitch together a genome from scratch?Science, 299, 1006–1007.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×