{"id":779525,"date":"2026-07-05T00:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T00:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779525\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T00:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T00:03:09","slug":"biologists-build-synthetic-cell-that-can-feed-grow-divide-and-evolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779525\/","title":{"rendered":"Biologists Build Synthetic Cell that Can Feed, Grow, Divide and Evolve"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biologists at the University of Minnesota<\/a> say they have built a synthetic cell \u2014 made entirely from non-living chemical components \u2014 that can complete a full life cycle: taking in nutrients, growing, copying its genetic material, dividing into daughter cells and passing along beneficial mutations to the next generation. Called SpudCell<\/a>, their project marks a major breakthrough in biological engineering.<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/a><\/p>\n

Cell cycle of synthetic cells with 90-kbp genome, undergoing selection replication. Image credit: Gaut et al., doi: 10.64898\/2026.07.01.735724.<\/p>\n

\u201cDNA is the programming for all living organisms,\u201d said corresponding author Dr. Katarzyna Adamala and her colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cA human genome is roughly 3 billion pairs in size. Biologists had speculated that the genome for a living cell could be as small as 113,000 pairs, but SpudCell\u2019s genome is even smaller, at 90,000 pairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike natural cells, which inherit billions of years of evolutionary machinery, the team\u2019s synthetic cells were assembled from scratch out of chemically defined parts: fatty membranes shaped into liposomes, a stripped-down protein-making system, and a 90,000-base-pair genome spread across seven or eight plasmids.<\/p>\n

The genome was designed to encode everything the cell would need to feed itself, replicate its DNA, grow and divide.<\/p>\n

To feed, the synthetic cells fuse with smaller \u2018feeder\u2019 liposomes that supply lipids, enzymes and small molecules.<\/p>\n

The fusion is triggered by a modified bacterial pore protein, made by the cell itself, that displays a chemical tag on its outer surface. That tag latches onto a matching tag on the feeder liposomes, merging the two and delivering fresh raw material \u2014 a process the researchers compare to a predator drawing in prey that is deliberately kept in surplus.<\/p>\n

Over repeated rounds of feeding, the cells replicated their DNA using an enzyme borrowed from a bacterial virus, and were mechanically split into \u2018daughter\u2019 cells.<\/p>\n

Tracking a chemical marker built into each round of feeder liposomes, the team followed a single lineage of cells through five generations, and found that roughly 30% of the surviving daughter cells still carried a complete copy of the seven-part genome, despite having no cellular skeleton or dedicated system for sorting DNA to offspring, mechanisms every natural cell relies on.<\/p>\n

The scientists then tested whether Darwinian selection could take hold in this stripped-down system.<\/p>\n

They engineered a version of the feeding protein with a stronger genetic promoter, causing cells carrying it to fuse with feeder liposomes more efficiently.<\/p>\n

When cells with the stronger and weaker versions were mixed and allowed to compete for five generations, the faster-growing cells gradually made up a larger share of the population, rising from an even split to as much as 61% in one experiment.<\/p>\n

When feeder liposomes were made scarce, mimicking limited resources, the advantage of the faster-growing cells grew even more pronounced, with fast growers eventually outnumbering slow growers by better than two to one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is likely the most exciting project I\u2019ve ever worked on,\u201d Dr. Adamala said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve replicated in chemistry what only used to be possible in biology: the complete set of behaviors of a cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt proves that the most fundamental functions of life, like growth and replication, do not need a mysterious magical spark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, the authors engineered a division mechanism that does not depend on any cellular skeleton, instead relying on proteins crowding together on the cell\u2019s surface to pinch the membrane apart.<\/p>\n

They showed that this genetically encoded division, too, could be linked to the feeding advantage, with faster-growing cells producing more daughter cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work is just the beginning,\u201d Dr. Adamala said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are showing it\u2019s possible to engineer the basic functions of the cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo fully realize the promise of this technology \u2014 to make it robust and practical \u2014 we need combined international effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

A paper<\/a> on the findings was posted July 2 as a preprint on bioRxiv.org.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Nathaniel J. Gaut et al. 2026. A Chemically Defined Synthetic Cell Capable Of Growth and Replication. bioRxiv, doi: 10.64898\/2026.07.01.735724<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Biologists at the University of Minnesota say they have built a synthetic cell \u2014 made entirely from non-living…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,1618,1115,2931,369181,1621,6687,208,369182,58803,369183,128,368808,368809],"class_list":["post-779525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cell","tag-dna","tag-evolution","tag-feeding","tag-gene","tag-genome","tag-growth","tag-liposome","tag-plasmid","tag-replication","tag-science","tag-spudcell","tag-synthetic-cell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}