Particle.news
Download on the App Store
6 ARTICLES
·
4w ago

University of Minnesota Team Publishes SpudCell, a Synthetic Cell That Completes a Lab Life Cycle

The researchers released detailed methods through a new nonprofit to enable independent replication, with the construct still dependent on supplied ribosomes and nutrients.

Image
Left: A super-resolution image of SpudCell's liposomes with an encapsulated genome and active protein expression. Right: A SpudCell encapsulates a whole genome. The DNA of the genome and the synthetic cell membrane are stained with fluorescent dyes.
The project, called SpudCell, was announced in a 190-page non-peer-reviewed research paper by associate professors at the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota | Representative Image
Image

Overview

  • The team reports a bottom-up system called SpudCell that, in lab conditions, takes in nutrients, grows, copies its genetic material and divides, completing a contained life cycle.
  • SpudCell’s genetic program is about 90,000 DNA base pairs split across seven plasmids, a compact and modular design that lets researchers change functions without redoing the whole genome.
  • The system cannot make its own ribosomes and relies on supplied ribosomes and nutrient-carrying liposomes, which limits its persistence to only a few to several generations before function degrades.
  • Engineered variants that overproduced a membrane protein grew faster and outcompeted others within roughly five generations, demonstrating simple in‑vitro selection in the synthetic system.
  • The team launched Biotic and published step‑by‑step protocols to encourage independent replication and community standards, while calling for peer review, further work to make ribosome synthesis autonomous, and early safety planning.