Self-PrOPelled ARTificial protocells – PopART

Mimicking the properties of life in artificial cells is a current research frontier in synthetic biology. Among the many properties of artificial cells that aim to mimic metabolism, growth, sensing, etc., reproducing motility and directional swimming is major for understanding the individual and collective behavior of their more complex natural counterparts, while having strong potential for developing advanced therapies. One of the most efficient mechanisms of self-propulsion is based on self-phoretic swimmers that propel themselves by generating a local gradient of concentration, temperature, etc through asymmetric surface properties (Janus particles). These gradients induce surface flows that lead to directed motion. In the PopART project, we aim at designing and developing a new generation of self-propelled particles, based on fully biocompatible carriers made of polymer vesicles, also referred as polymersomes, either chemically powered by enzymatic decomposition of glucose fuel or light driven by self-thermophoresis, and asymmetrically functionalized with filamentous bacteriophages in order to improve their directional swimming efficiency. Janus particles will be obtained by different processes, including microfluidic assisted double emulsion and nanoprecipitation, hydration of films by electroformation and calibration on filters. The PopART approach involves mixing functionalized amphiphilic diblock copolymers capable of segregating within the bilayer, requiring a thorough understanding of thermodynamic phenomena, combined with (bio)chemical surface modifications with enzymes and phages, via gold nanoparticles. The spatiotemporal organization of these protocells will be studied at the single particle level in order to characterize their swimming behavior and to understand individual and collective effects in simple and complex fluids. While addressing relevant fundamental questions, the objective of the PopART project is to establish a proof of concept for the design of self-propelled artificial protocells capable of demonstrating efficient motility, allowing in the long term to solve some drug delivery challenges.