Synthetic or artificial cells are vesicles, often lipid vesicles, with wide ranging applications from drug delivery to nanoreactors in biocatalysis. We are developing polymer-lipid hybrid vesicles for applications in compartmentalised biocatalysis, in which the polymer has been shown to greatly enhance the lifetime of membrane-bound proteins in the synthetic cells.

Phospholipids are by far the most commonly used building blocks of synthetic cells, but suffer from poor mechanical and chemical stability, impairing their applications in biotechnology. Polymersomes, which are vesicles made from amphiphilic block-copolymer, often exhibit much better stability, but their poor biomimetic properties limit their functionalisation with natural membrane proteins. Together with Prof. Paul Beales from the University of Leeds, we are studying whether hybrid vesicles, consisting of mixtures of (phospho)lipids and amphiphilic polymers, are suitable compartments for research in synthetic cells.

Key publications

2023

Müller W.A., Beales P.A., Muniz A.R. & Jeuken L.J.C. (2023), Unraveling the phase behavior, mechanical stability, and protein reconstitution properties of polymer–lipid hybrid vesicles, Biomacromolecules 24(9): 4156-4169. DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.3c00498

Seneviratne R., Coates G., Xu Z., Cornell C.E., Thompson R.F., Sadeghpour A., Maskell D.P., Jeuken L.J.C., Rappolt M. & Beales P.A. (2023), High resolution membrane structures within hybrid lipid-polymer vesicles revealed by combining X-ray scattering and electron microscopy, Small 19(22): 2206267. DOI: 10.1002/smll.202206267

2022

Catania R., Machin J., Rappolt M., Muench S.P., Beales P.A. & Jeuken L.J.C. (2022), Detergent-free functionalization of hybrid vesicles with membrane proteins using SMALPs, Macromolecules 55: 3415-3422. DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c00326

2016

Khan S., Li M., Muench S.P., Jeuken L.J.C. & Beales P.A. (2016), Durable proteo-hybrid vesicles for the extended functional lifetime of membrane proteins in bionanotechnology, Chemical Communications 52: 11020-11023. DOI: 10.1039/C6CC04207D