Jump-starting life? Fundamental aspects of synthetic biology

Abstract

What is life and how could it originate? This question lies at the core of understanding the cell as the smallest living unit. Although we are witnessing a golden era of the life sciences, we are ironically still far from giving a convincing answer to this question. In this short article, I argue why synthetic biology in conjunction with the quantitative sciences may provide us with new concepts and tools to address it.

Figure 1.

Top-down versus bottom-up: strategies to arrive at the potential minimal living unit. While the top-down approach eliminates redundant genes from already living organisms, the bottom-up approach aims to jump-start cellular life from a fundamental system of functional modules, e.g., the basic ingredients of Ganti’s “chemoton.”

Figure 2.

Toward cell division in vitro. Shown is a model of reconstitution of protein self-organization and gradient formation in artificial cell-shaped containers by minimal functional elements of the E. coli cell division machinery. Reaction/diffusion–induced oscillations of MinCDE proteins position FtsZ protofilaments to the center of the compartment, mimicking the first step in Z ring assembly. Adapted from Zieske and Schwille (2014).