Japanese scientists develop artificial photosynthetic cells

A team led by associate professor Yutetsu Kuruma of the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology has constructed simple artificial cells that can produce chemical energy that helps synthesize parts of the cells themselves, Science Daily reports.

Reports say the breakthrough paves the way to construct energetically-independent artificial cells.

This work also marks an important milestone in constructing fully photosynthetic artificial cells, and may shed light on how primordial cells used sunlight as an energy source early in life’s history.

The newly formed bacteriorhodopsin and ATP synthase parts spontaneously integrates into the artificial photosynthetic organelles and further enhanced ATP photosynthesis activity.

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As professor Kuruma states “I have been trying for a long time to construct a living artificial cell, especially focusing on membranes. In this work, our artificial cells were wrapped in lipid membranes, and small membrane structures were encapsulated inside them. In this way, the cell membrane is the most important aspect of forming a cell, and I wanted to show the importance of this point in the study of artificial cell and feedback in origins of life studies.”

Kuruma thinks the most impact point of this work is that artificial cells can produce energy to synthesize the parts of the cell itself.

This means that the artificial cells could be made to be energetically independent and then it would be possible to construct self-sustaining cells, just like actual biological cells.

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