Self-assembly of stabilized droplets from liquid-liquid phase separation for higher-order structures and functions

Mehwish Naz; Lin Zhang; Chong Chen; Shuo Yang; Hongjing Dou; Stephen Mann; Jianwei Li

doi:10.1038/s42004-024-01168-5

Self-assembly of stabilized droplets from liquid-liquid phase separation for higher-order structures and functions

Commun Chem. 2024 Apr 9;7(1):79. doi: 10.1038/s42004-024-01168-5.

Authors

Mehwish Naz^#^{1

2}, Lin Zhang^#^{1

2}, Chong Chen³, Shuo Yang^{4

5}, Hongjing Dou^{6

7}, Stephen Mann^{8

9

10

11}, Jianwei Li¹²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
² Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study (ZIAS), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 429 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai, 201203, China.
³ MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku, Tykistökatu 6, Turku, 20520, Finland.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China. sjtu1578252@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁵ Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study (ZIAS), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 429 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai, 201203, China. sjtu1578252@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China. hjdou@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁷ Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study (ZIAS), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 429 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai, 201203, China. hjdou@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China. s.mann@bristol.ac.uk.
⁹ Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study (ZIAS), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 429 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai, 201203, China. s.mann@bristol.ac.uk.
¹⁰ Centre for Protolife Research and Centre for Organized Matter Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. s.mann@bristol.ac.uk.
¹¹ Max Planck-Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK. s.mann@bristol.ac.uk.
¹² MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku, Tykistökatu 6, Turku, 20520, Finland. jianwei.li@utu.fi.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Dynamic microscale droplets produced by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) have emerged as appealing biomaterials due to their remarkable features. However, the instability of droplets limits the construction of population-level structures with collective behaviors. Here we first provide a brief background of droplets in the context of materials properties. Subsequently, we discuss current strategies for stabilizing droplets including physical separation and chemical modulation. We also discuss the recent development of LLPS droplets for various applications such as synthetic cells and biomedical materials. Finally, we give insights on how stabilized droplets can self-assemble into higher-order structures displaying coordinated functions to fully exploit their potentials in bottom-up synthetic biology and biomedical applications.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

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