Membrane abscission, the final cut of the last connection between emerging daughter cells, is an indispensable event in the last stage of cell division and in other cellular processes such as endocytosis, virus release or bacterial sporulation. However, its mechanism remains poorly understood, impeding its application as a cell-division machinery for synthetic cells. Here we use fluorescence microscopy and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching measurements to study the in vitro reconstitution of the bacterial protein dynamin A inside liposomes. Upon external reshaping of the liposomes into dumbbells, dynamin A self-assembles at the membrane neck, resulting in membrane hemi-scission and even full scission. Dynamin A proteins constitute a simple one-component division machinery capable of splitting dumbbell-shaped liposomes, marking an important step towards building a synthetic cell.

The Cdv proteins constitute the cell division system of the Crenarchaea, a machinery closely related to the ESCRT system of eukaryotes. Using a combination of TEM imaging and biochemical assays, we here present an in vitro study of Metallosphaera sedula CdvB1, the Cdv protein that is believed to play a major role in the constricting ring that drives cell division in the Crenarchaea. We show that CdvB1 self-assembles into filaments that are depolymerized by the Vps4-homolog ATPase CdvC. Furthermore, we find that CdvB1 binds to negatively charged lipid membranes and can be detached from the membrane by the action of CdvC. Our findings provide novel insight into one of the main components of the archaeal cell division machinery.

Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are often used to mimic biological membranes in reconstitution experiments. They are also widely used in research on synthetic cells, as they provide a mechanically responsive reaction compartment that allows for controlled exchange of reactants with the environment. However, while many methods exist to encapsulate functional biomolecules in GUVs, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and reliable GUV fabrication still remains a major experimental hurdle in the field. Here, we show that defect-free GUVs containing complex biochemical systems can be generated by optimizing a double-emulsion method for GUV formation called continuous droplet interface crossing encapsulation (cDICE). By tightly controlling environmental conditions and tuning the lipid-in-oil dispersion, we show that it is possible to significantly improve the reproducibility of high-quality GUV formation as well as the encapsulation efficiency. We demonstrate efficient encapsulation for a range of biological systems including a minimal actin cytoskeleton, membrane-anchored DNA nanostructures, and a functional PURE (protein synthesis using recombinant elements) system. Our optimized cDICE method displays promising potential to become a standard method in biophysics and bottom-up synthetic biology.

Molecular traffic across lipid membranes is a vital process in cell biology that involves specialized biological pores with a great variety of pore diameters, from fractions of a nanometer to >30 nm. Creating artificial membrane pores covering similar size and complexity will aid the understanding of transmembrane molecular transport in cells, while artificial pores are also a necessary ingredient for synthetic cells. Here, we report the construction of DNA origami nanopores that have an inner diameter as large as 30 nm. We developed methods to successfully insert these ultrawide pores into the lipid membrane of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) by administering the pores concomitantly with vesicle formation in an inverted-emulsion cDICE technique. The reconstituted pores permit the transmembrane diffusion of large macromolecules, such as folded proteins, which demonstrates the formation of large membrane-spanning open pores. The pores are size selective, as dextran molecules with a diameter up to 28 nm can traverse the pores, whereas larger dextran molecules are blocked. By FRAP measurements and modeling of the GFP influx rate, we find that up to hundreds of pores can be functionally reconstituted into a single GUV. Our technique bears great potential for applications across different fields from biomimetics, to synthetic biology, to drug delivery.

Recent developments in synthetic biology may bring the bottom-up generation of a synthetic cell within reach. A key feature of a living synthetic cell is a functional cell cycle, in which DNA replication and segregation as well as cell growth and division are well integrated. Here, we describe different approaches to recreate these processes in a synthetic cell, based on natural systems and/or synthetic alternatives. Although some individual machineries have recently been established, their integration and control in a synthetic cell cycle remain to be addressed. In this Perspective, we discuss potential paths towards an integrated synthetic cell cycle.