Imperial College London
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Dr Alex Thompson

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery & Cancer

Lecturer in Sensing in Cancer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

alex.thompson08 Website

 
 
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Location

 

B411Bessemer BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Tang:2014:10.1038/NCHEM.1921,
author = {Tang, T-YD and Hak, CRC and Thompson, AJ and Kuimova, MK and Williams, DS and Perriman, AW and Mann, S},
doi = {10.1038/NCHEM.1921},
journal = {Nature Chemistry},
pages = {527--533},
title = {Fatty acid membrane assembly on coacervate microdroplets as a step towards a hybrid protocell model},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCHEM.1921},
volume = {6},
year = {2014}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Mechanisms of prebiotic compartmentalization are central to providing insights into how protocellular systems emerged on the early Earth. Protocell models are based predominantly on the membrane self-assembly of fatty-acid vesicles, although membrane-free scenarios that involve liquid–liquid microphase separation (coacervation) have also been considered. Here we integrate these alternative models of prebiotic compartmentalization and develop a hybrid protocell model based on the spontaneous self-assembly of a continuous fatty-acid membrane at the surface of preformed coacervate microdroplets prepared from cationic peptides/polyelectrolytes and adenosine triphosphate or oligo/polyribonucleotides. We show that the coacervate-supported membrane is multilamellar, and mediates the selective uptake or exclusion of small and large molecules. The coacervate interior can be disassembled without loss of membrane integrity, and fusion and growth of the hybrid protocells can be induced under conditions of high ionic strength. Our results highlight how notions of membrane-mediated compartmentalization, chemical enrichment and internalized structuration can be integrated in protocell models via simple chemical and physical processes.
AU  - Tang,T-YD
AU  - Hak,CRC
AU  - Thompson,AJ
AU  - Kuimova,MK
AU  - Williams,DS
AU  - Perriman,AW
AU  - Mann,S
DO  - 10.1038/NCHEM.1921
EP  - 533
PY  - 2014///
SN  - 1755-4330
SP  - 527
TI  - Fatty acid membrane assembly on coacervate microdroplets as a step towards a hybrid protocell model
T2  - Nature Chemistry
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCHEM.1921
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000336897800015&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.1921#article-info
VL  - 6
ER  -
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