Reproduction of vesicles coupled with a vesicle surface-confined enzymatic polymerisation

Minoru Kurisu, Harutaka Aoki, Takehiro Jimbo, Yuka Sakuma, Masayuki Imai, Sandra Serrano-Luginbühl, Peter Walde

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Molecular assembly systems that have autonomous reproduction and Darwinian evolution abilities can be considered as minimal cell-like systems. Here we demonstrate the reproduction of cell-sized vesicles composed of AOT, i.e., sodium bis-(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate, coupled with an enzymatic polymerisation reaction occurring on the surface of the vesicles. The particular reaction used is the horseradish peroxidase-catalysed polymerisation of aniline with hydrogen peroxide as oxidant, which yields polyaniline in its emeraldine salt form (PANI-ES). If AOT micelles are added during this polymerisation reaction, the AOT - PANI-ES vesicles interact with the AOT molecules in the external solution and selectively incorporate them in their membrane, which leads to a growth of the vesicles. If the AOT vesicles also contain cholesterol, the vesicles not only show growth, but also reproduction. An important characteristic of this reproduction system is that the AOT-based vesicles encourage the synthesis of PANI-ES and PANI-ES promotes the growth of AOT vesicles.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117
JournalCommunications Chemistry
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019 Dec 1

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