Thermo-responsive aqueous two-phase system for two-level compartmentalization

Professor Anderson H.C. Shum from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and his PhD student Huanqing Cui had worked on the research for the topic “Thermo-responsive aqueous two-phase system for two-level compartmentalization”. The research is recently published by Nature Communications on August 8, 2024.

Details of the publication:

“Thermo-responsive aqueous two-phase system for two-level compartmentalization”

Huanqing Cui, Yage Zhang, Sihan Liu, Yang Cao, Qingming Ma, Yuan Liu, Haisong Lin, Chang Li, Yang Xiao, Sammer Ul Hassan, and Ho Cheung Shum*

Article in Nature Communications, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51043-z

Abstract:

Hierarchical compartmentalization responding to changes in intracellular and extracellular environments is ubiquitous in living eukaryotic cells but remains a formidable task in synthetic systems. Here we report a two-level compartmentalization approach based on a thermo-responsive aqueous two-phase system (TR-ATPS) comprising poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and dextran (DEX). Liquid membraneless compartments enriched in PNIPAM are phase-separated from the continuous DEX solution via liquid-liquid phase separation at 25 oC and shrink dramatically with small second-level compartments generated at the interface, resembling the structure of colloidosome, by increasing the temperature to 35 oC. The TR-ATPS can store biomolecules, program the spatial distribution of enzymes, and accelerate the overall biochemical reaction efficiency by nearly 7-fold. The TR-ATPS inspires on-demand, stimulus-triggered spatiotemporal enrichment of biomolecules via two-level compartmentalization, creating opportunities in synthetic biology and biochemical engineering.

Note: Pictures are reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license. [Nat. Commun. 2024, 15, 1437] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.