Coupled Metabolic Cycles Allow Out‐of‐Equilibrium Autopoietic Vesicle Replication

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 59; no. 46; pp. 20361 - 20366
• Main Authors: Engwerda, Anthonius H. J., Southworth, Josh, Lebedeva, Maria A., Scanes, Robert J. H., Kukura, Philipp, Fletcher, Stephen P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 09-11-2020; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Edition: International ed. in English
• Subjects: autocatalysis; autopoiesis; Catalysts; Communication; Communications; metabolic network; Metabolic networks; Metabolism; Micelles; Nanoparticles; out-of-equilibrium system; Replication; Surfactants; Vesicles; autopoiesis; out-of-equilibrium system; autocatalysis; metabolic network; vesicles
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.202007302

We report chemically fuelled out‐of‐equilibrium self‐replicating vesicles based on surfactant formation. We studied the vesicles’ autocatalytic formation using UPLC to determine monomer concentration and interferometric scattering microscopy at the nanoparticle level. Unlike related reports of chemically fuelled self‐replicating micelles, our vesicular system was too stable to surfactant degradation to be maintained out of equilibrium. The introduction of a catalyst, which introduces a second catalytic cycle into the metabolic network, was used to close the first cycle. This shows how coupled catalytic cycles can create a metabolic network that allows the creation and perseverance of fuel‐driven, out‐of‐equilibrium self‐replicating vesicles.
Continuous addition of a chemical fuel allows for the autocatalytic formation of surfactant that aggregate into vesicles. These vesicles can be maintained out‐of‐equilibrium by adding a catabolic catalyst to introduce a second, coupled reaction cycle into the metabolic network.