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Enzyme-mediated nitric oxide production in vasoactive erythrocyte membrane-enclosed coacervate protocells

Nature Chemistry volume 12, pages 1165–1173 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The design and construction of synthetic therapeutic protocells capable of establishing cognate chemical communication channels with living cells is an important challenge for synthetic biology and bio-engineering. Here we develop a step towards protocell-mediated nitric-oxide-induced vasodilation by constructing a new synthetic cell model based on bio-derived coacervate vesicles with high haemocompatibility and increased blood circulation times. The hybrid protocells are prepared by the spontaneous self-assembly of haemoglobin-containing erythrocyte membrane fragments on the surface of preformed polysaccharide–polynucleotide coacervate micro-droplets containing glucose oxidase. We use the sequestered enzymes to program a spatially coupled glucose oxidase/haemoglobin reaction cascade, which in the presence of glucose and hydroxyurea generates a protocell-mediated flux of nitric oxide that we exploit for in vitro and in vivo blood vessel vasodilation. Taken together, our results provide new opportunities for the development of endogenously organized cell-like entities (biocompatible micro-bots) geared specifically towards active interfacing with individual living cells and cell communities.

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Fig. 1: Structure and function of bio-derived hybrid protocells.
Fig. 2: Construction and characterization of erythrocyte membrane-encapsulated coacervate protocells.
Fig. 3: Haemocompatibility of coacervate-based protocells.
Fig. 4: Blood circulation and in vivo biodistribution.
Fig. 5: Protocell-mediated generation of NO.
Fig. 6: Protocell-induced NO-mediated blood vessel vasodilation.

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Data availability

The data analysed and used to support this study can be found within the main text and Supplementary Information.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21735002, 21778016, 21675047, 21874035) for financial support. The work was partly supported by the BBSRC (BB/P017320/1), the ERC Advanced Grant Scheme (EC-2016-ADG 740235) and BrisSynBio, a BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (BB/L01386X/1). We thank C. Xu for fruitful discussions, and Rencai Animal Hospital in Changsha for rabbit experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory for Bio-Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering of Hunan Province, Hunan University, Changsha, P. R. China

    Songyang Liu, Yanwen Zhang, Xiaohai Yang, Xiaoxiao He, Kemin Wang & Jianbo Liu

  2. Centre for Protolife Research, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Mei Li, Jianbo Liu & Stephen Mann

  3. The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, P. R. China

    Li Xiong & Zijian Zhang

  4. Max Planck-Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Stephen Mann

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S.L., K.W., J.L. and S.M. conceived the experiments. S.L., Y.Z., Z.Z. and L.X. performed the experiments. All the authors undertook the data analysis, and S.L., J.L. and S.M. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jianbo Liu or Stephen Mann.

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Liu, S., Zhang, Y., Li, M. et al. Enzyme-mediated nitric oxide production in vasoactive erythrocyte membrane-enclosed coacervate protocells. Nat. Chem. 12, 1165–1173 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-020-00585-y

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