New Delhi: Replicating life in a lab has long been the fascination of scientists, but researchers now claim they have now developed the world’s first synthetic cell, built entirely from non-living chemical components.
The project, called SpudCell, was announced in a 190-page non-peer-reviewed research paper by associate professors Kate Adamala and Aaron Engelhart from the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Their teams managed to create the complete life cycle of a cell and named the project after Sputnik, hoping it would also be a landmark breakthrough in biological engineering.
“This is likely the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on. We’ve replicated in chemistry what only used to be possible in biology: the complete set of behaviors of a cell. It proves that the most fundamental functions of life, like growth and replication, do not need a mysterious magical spark,” Adamala said in a university statement.
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An artificial cell
SpudCell is essentially just a microscopic water droplet wrapped in some fatty tissue. Within the droplet scientists have put in a cocktail of chemicals and snippets of DNA with approximately 36 genes. According to the research paper, the cell can fuse with other droplets and grow, it can replicate its genome, and even multiply.
What makes SpudCells unique is that researchers have often managed to replicate individual cell functions, but never have they managed to create a synthetic cell that can perform multiple cell functions such as feeding or growth. Through bio-engineering, researchers created SpudCell’s genome in such a way that it can create its own molecular identity and place microscopic tags on its own surface. Those tags are capable of attaching themselves to other cells and help the cell “feed” on enzymes and other molecules that the cell might need.
SpudCell was also taught to divide itself using a technique where surface molecules face tension until the force is strong enough to break the cell into two. But researchers found that the division process is still inefficient and only 30 per cent of SpudCells carried the cell’s full genome after five divisions.
The biological breakthrough has already faced criticism. Science reported that Adamala’s research was allegedly rejected by the reputed journal Cell after a reviewer claimed that SpudCells were not “real biology”. Other researchers claimed that while SpudCell may be “cool” it does not mean that science can create a fully synthetic cell yet.
Meanwhile, Adamala and her collaborators have also launched Biotic, a public-benefit research and engineering institution which aims to “engage with researchers, engineers, designers, social scientists, entrepreneurs, and policy experts who want to build the foundations of biological technology”.
“One of the most ambitious and fascinating goals of bioengineering is to build a biochemical system that could cross the threshold from chemistry to life,” reads the research paper, and Adamala believes that SpudCell could be a step on that path.