System concentration shift as a regulator of transcription-translation system within liposomes

Toshiki Akui; Kei Fujiwara; Gaku Sato; Masahiro Takinoue; Shin-Ichiro M Nomura; Nobuhide Doi

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102859

System concentration shift as a regulator of transcription-translation system within liposomes

iScience. 2021 Jul 14;24(8):102859. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102859. eCollection 2021 Aug 20.

Authors

Toshiki Akui¹, Kei Fujiwara¹, Gaku Sato¹, Masahiro Takinoue², Shin-Ichiro M Nomura³, Nobuhide Doi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biosciences & Informatics, Keio University, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan.
² Department of Computer Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 226-8502, Japan.
³ Department of Robotics, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.

Abstract

Biochemical systems in living cells have their optimum concentration ratio among each constituent element to maintain their functionality. However, in the case of the biochemical system with complex interactions and feedbacks among elements, their activity as a system greatly changes by the concentration shift of the entire system irrespective of the concentration ratio among elements. In this study, by using a transcription-translation (TX-TL) system as the subject, we illustrate the principle of the nonlinear relationship between the system concentration and the activity of the system. Our experiment and simulation showed that shifts of the system concentration of TX-TL by dilution and concentration works as a switch of activity and demonstrated its ability to induce a biochemical system to confer the permeability of small molecules to liposomes. These results contribute to the creation of artificial cells with the switch and provide an insight into the emergence of protocells.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Cell biology; Systems biology.