Chromatophores efficiently promote light-driven ATP synthesis and DNA transcription inside hybrid multicompartment artificial cells
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Chromatophores are closed vesicles extracted from photosynthetic bacteria that efficiently perform the photophosphorylation reaction (ADP + Pi → ATP) under illumination. Here we show that, when entrapped inside giant lipid vesicles, they behave as nano-biophotosynthetic organellae, allowing the construction of energetically autonomous artificial protocells. As proof of concept, DNA has been transcribed within an artificial protocell, thanks to the continuous ATP photo-production from chromatophores. Such a hybrid multicompartment approach will speed up the current efforts of constructing cell-like systems of increasing complexity, allowing the implementation of several ATP-dependent processes. Developed at the interface between synthetic biology and systems chemistry, the science of artificial protocells promises unprecedented biotechnological applications, as well as unveiling still unsolved origins-of-life questions.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Sugars such as ribose or 2-desoxy ribose, possessing D configuration only, constitute the chiral part of nucleotides such as ATP and are the chiral part of RNA and DNA.
“Sugars, such as ribose or 2-desoxy ribose, possessing D configuration only, constitute the chiral part of nucleotides such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP, Figure 5A), (Altamura et al., 2021) and are the chiral part of RNA and DNA.”
From The Origin and Early Evolution of Life: Homochirality Emergence in Prebiotic Environments (2023) · cites this paper as Altamura et al., 2021
The Photosustaining mRNA biosynthesis section (p. 7) treats ATP as a nucleotide used in mRNA synthesis. It does not discuss ribose or deoxyribose, their D configuration, or their role as the chiral parts of ATP, RNA, and DNA. Searches for those sugar and chirality terms found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
A vesicle bioreactor as a step toward an artificial cell assembly
Noireaux, V., & Libchaber, A. (2004) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0408236101 · Cited by 1,152 · see citing works
Self-reproducing catalyst drives repeated phospholipid synthesis and membrane growth
Hardy, M. D., Yang, J., Selimkhanov, J., Cole, C. M., Tsimring, L. S., & Devaraj, N. K. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1506704112 · Cited by 181 · see citing works
Toward the engineering of minimal living cells
Luisi, P. L. (2002) · The Anatomical Record · doi:10.1002/ar.10155 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- [4]Hindley, J. W. et al. Building a synthetic mechanosensitive signaling pathway in compartmentalized artificial cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116 , 16711-16716 (2019)
- [23]Altamura, E. et al. Highly oriented photosynthetic reaction centers generate a proton gradient in synthetic protocells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114 , 3837-3842 (2017a).
- [31]Sener, M. K., Olsen, J. D., Hunter, C. N. & Schulten, K. Atomic-level structural and functional model of a bacterial photosynthetic membrane vesicle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 , 15723-15728 (2007)
- [33]Hunter, C.N. Genetic manipulation of the antenna complexes of purple bacteria. In: R.E. Blankenship, M.T. Madigan, C.E. Bauer (Eds.), Anoxygenic Photosynthetic Bacteria. Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration, vol 2, Springer, Dordrecht. pp. 473-501 (1995)
- [35]Etzold, C., Deckers-Hebestreit, G. & Altendorf, K. Turnover Number of Escherichia coli F0F1 ATP Synthase for ATP Synthesis in Membrane Vesicles. European Journal of Biochemistry 243 , 336-343 (1997).
- [43]Altamura, E., Carrara, P., D'Angelo, F., Mavelli, F. & Stano, P. Extrinsic stochastic factors (solute partition) in gene expression inside lipid vesicles and lipid-stabilized water-in-oil droplets: a review. Synth Biol 3 , ysy011 (2018).
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Autonomic integration in nested protocell communities
Yin, Z., Gao, N., Xu, C., Li, M., & Mann, S. (2023) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/jacs.3c02816 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
The Origin and Early Evolution of Life: Homochirality Emergence in Prebiotic Environments
Chieffo, C., Shvetsova, A., Skorda, F., Lopez, A., & Fiore, M. (2023) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2023.0007 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Self-citationRecurrent neural networks in synthetic cells: a route to autonomous molecular agents?
Braccini, M., Collinson, E., Roli, A., Fellermann, H., & Stano, P. (2023) · Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology · doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1210334 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Altamura, E., Albanese, P., Marotta, R., Milano, F., Fiore, M., Trotta, M., Stano, P., & Mavelli, F.
- Affiliations
- University of Bari Aldo Moro (IT)
- Italian Institute of Technology (IT)
- Institute of Sciences of Food Production (IT)
- Lyon 1 Université (FR)
- National Research Council (IT)
- University of Salento (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Altamura, Emiliano
- Albanese, Paola
- Mavelli, Fabio
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2021-02
- Volume
- 118
- Issue
- 7
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC7896284
- OpenAlex
- W3126945947
- Cited by
- 92
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 7
- FWCI
- 7.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- AIRUS (submittedVersion)
- CINECA IRIS Institutional Research Information System (University of Bari Aldo Moro) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Use Siena air (University of Siena) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › ATP Synthase and ATPases Research
- Keywords
- chromatophores, photophosphorylation, ATP production, DNA transcription, giant lipid vesicles, photosynthetic bacteria, synthetic biology, origin of life
- MeSH terms
- Adenosine Triphosphate, Photosynthesis, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, Sunlight, Transcription, Genetic, Bacterial Chromatophores, ATP Synthetase Complexes, Artificial Cells, Synthetic Biology
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
