In Situ Self-Assembly of Coacervate Microdroplets into Viable Artificial Cell Wall with Heritability

Creating an intelligent artificial cell wall to endow fabricated cells with more advanced functionalities is highly desirable. Here, an efficient and cytocompatible approach to generate a type of viable artificial cell wall based on direct self-assembly of coacervate microdroplets on individual cellular surface is developed, which can protect the fabricated cell against various external stresses and can then prolong the storage of the fabricated cells over two months. Moreover, as a type of viable artificial cell wall, it can not only help the fabricated cell sequester nutrients or functionalized substances such as catalase, or iron oxide nanoparticles actively from the solution which then makes the fabricated cell more versatile but also allows the fabricated cell proliferate. Significantly, the artificial cell wall also shows heritable behavior that can reserve its protection to as far as the third-generation daughter cell. Undoubtedly, such an illustrated artificial cell wall provides a conceptually new and promising technique toward the cell-based research as well as application of next generation.