Autonomous movement of a chemically powered vesicle

Self-Propulsion Strategies for Artificial Cell-Like Compartments

Reconstitution of life-like properties in artificial cells is a current research frontier in synthetic biology. Mimicking metabolism, growth, and sensing are active areas of investigation; however, achieving motility and directional taxis are also challenging in the context of artificial cells. To tackle this problem, recent progress has been made that leverages the tools of active matter physics in synthetic biology. This review surveys the most significant achievements in designing motile cell-like compartments. In this context, strategies for self-propulsion are summarized, including, compartmentalization of catalytically active particles, phoretic propulsion of vesicles and emulsion droplet motion driven by Marangoni flows. This work showcases how the realization of motile protocells may impact biomedical engineering while also aiming at answering fundamental questions in locomotion of prebiotic cells.

Migration of Phospholipid Vesicles Can Be Selectively Driven by Concentration Gradients of Metal Chloride Solutions

We have investigated the migrations of phospholipid vesicles under the concentration gradients of metal ions. We microinjected metal chloride solutions, monovalent (NaCl and KCl), divalent (CaCl₂ and MgCl₂), and trivalent (LaCl₃) salts, toward phospholipid giant vesicles (GVs) composed of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC). For NaCl, CaCl₂, and MgCl₂ solutions, the GVs migrated straight toward the tip of the micropipette in response to the concentration gradients, whereas for KCl and LaCl₃, GVs moved to the opposite direction. Our motion tracking of lipid domains in a vesicle membrane showed no unidirectional flow in the membrane during the vesicle migration, indicating that the Marangoni mechanism is not responsible for the observed vesicle migration. We calculated the diffusiophoretic velocities for symmetric and asymmetrical electrolytes by solving the Stokes' equation numerically. The theoretical diffusiophoretic velocities described the observed migration velocities well. Thus, we can control the migration of vesicle in response to the concentration gradient by adapting the electrolytes and the lipids.

Phoretic motion of soft vesicles and droplets: an XFEM/particle-based numerical solution

When immersed in solution, surface-active particles interact with solute molecules and migrate along gradients of solute concentration. Depending on the conditions, this phenomenon could arise from either diffusiophoresis or the Marangoni effect, both of which involve strong interactions between the fluid and the particle surface. We introduce here a numerical approach that can accurately capture these interactions, and thus provide an efficient tool to understand and characterize the phoresis of soft particles. The model is based on a combination of the extended finite element-that enable the consideration of various discontinuities across the particle surface-and the particle-based moving interface method-that is used to measure and update the interface deformation in time. In addition to validating the approach with analytical solutions, the model is used to study the motion of deformable vesicles in solutions with spatial variations in both solute concentration and temperature.

Asymmetric osmotic water permeation through a vesicle membrane

Understanding the water permeation through a cell membrane is of primary importance for biological activities and a key step to capture its shape transformation in salt solution. In this work, we reveal the dynamical behaviors of osmotically driven transport of water molecules across a vesicle membrane by molecular dynamics simulations. Of particular interest is that the water transport in and out of vesicles is highly distinguishable given the osmotic force are the same, suggesting an asymmetric osmotic transportation. This asymmetric phenomenon exists in a broad range of parameter space such as the salt concentration, temperature, and vesicle size and can be ascribed to the similar asymmetric potential energy of lipid-ion, lipid-water, lipid-solution, lipid-lipid, and the lipid-lipid energy fluctuation. Specifically, the water flux has a linear increase with the salt concentration, similar to the prediction by Nernst-Planck equation or Fick's first law. Furthermore, due to the Arrhenius relation between the membrane permeability and temperature, the water flux also exhibits excellent Arrhenius dependence on the temperature. Meanwhile, the water flux shows a linear increase with the vesicle surface area since the flux amount across a unit membrane area should be a constant. Finally, we also present the anonymous diffusion behaviors for the vesicle itself, where transitions from normal diffusion at short times to subdiffusion at long times are identified. Our results provide significant new physical insights for the osmotic water permeation through a vesicle membrane and are helpful for future experimental studies.

A microscopic model for chemically-powered Janus motors

Very small synthetic motors that make use of chemical reactions to propel themselves in solution hold promise for new applications in the development of new materials, science and medicine. The prospect of such potential applications, along with the fact that systems with many motors or active elements display interesting cooperative phenomena of fundamental interest, has made the study of synthetic motors an active research area. Janus motors, comprising catalytic and noncatalytic hemispheres, figure prominently in experimental and theoretical studies of these systems. While continuum models of Janus motor systems are often used to describe motor dynamics, microscopic models that are able to account for intermolecular interactions, many-body concentration gradients, fluid flows and thermal fluctuations provide a way to explore the dynamical behavior of these complex out-of-equilibrium systems that does not rely on approximations that are often made in continuum theories. The analysis of microscopic models from first principles provides a foundation from which the range of validity and limitations of approximate theories of the dynamics may be assessed. In this paper, a microscopic model for the diffusiophoretic propulsion of Janus motors, where motor interactions with the environment occur only through hard collisions, is constructed, analyzed and compared to theoretical predictions. Microscopic simulations of both single-motor and many-motor systems are carried out to illustrate the results.

Coarse-grained simulations of an active filament propelled by a self-generated solute gradient

A self-propelling semiflexible filament exhibits a variety of dynamical states depending on the flexibility and activity of the filament. Here we investigate the dynamics of such an active filament using a bead-spring model with the explicit hydrodynamic interactions. The activity in the filament is incorporated by inserting chemically active dimers at regular intervals along the chain. The chemical reactions at the catalytic bead of the dimer produces a self-generated concentration gradient and gives sufficient fuel to exhibit self-propulsion for the filament. Depending upon the rigidity and the configuration, the polymeric filament exhibits three distinct types of spontaneous motion, namely, rotational, snaking, and translational motion. The self-propulsion velocity of the filament for various rigidity and sizes has been calculated, and the factors affecting the propulsion are identified.