Metabolism-driven division of minimal cell-like systems

Building a synthetic cell from molecular components is one of the grand scientific and intellectual challenges of the 21st century, and requires interdisciplinary skillsets to design and integrate biochemical modules at different levels of hierarchy.

Great progress has been made in the fundamental understanding and reconstitution of key features, such as metabolic reaction networks and replication machinery.

However, their successful synergistic integration in minimal cells still lags far behind, due to often largely different experimental approaches.

MetaDivide will bring together two groups of world-leading scientists with complementary expertise in biochemistry and biophysics to address this gap.

Poolman and Schwille will combine their mastery of membrane systems and protein machineries to establish a blueprint for coupling metabolic networks to cellular modules for spatiotemporal regulation and force-induction for division.

By this, we aim to reconstitute in a minimal system one of the most stunning and central features of cellular life: The autonomous division of proto-cellular compartments by encapsulated self-organizing macromolecular machinery, driven by a self-sustaining energy metabolism.

We will test our hypothesis that the otherwise separately researched features of life: Metabolism, Cell Division and Genome Segregation are mechanistically linked in the emergence of cellular life.

Besides the great technical advance in synthetic biology, this will be a huge accomplishment in the understanding of biological mechanisms in todays organisms, which in living cells are often obscured by their immense molecular complexity.

Moreover, our new fundamental insights on the main principles underlying cellular life will advance application-driven research: By elucidating the mechanisms of out-of-equilibrium reaction networks and cell division, we will obtain insight that may inform the future development of generic small molecules to curb bacterial proliferation.