Cell-Free Reactions in Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) for Synthetic Cell Applications

To begin, prepare the GUV outer buffer solution in a 1.5-milliliter microcentrifuge tube. Mixed together spermidine, ATP, GTP, CTP, UTP, creatine phosphate, magnesium acetate, potassium glutamate, HEPES, potassium hydroxide, folinic acid. glucose, and amino acid stock.

Add ultra purified deionized water to bring the final volume of the solution to one milliliter. Next, in a fume hood, add 17.3 microliters of POPC stock solution to a 15-milliliter glass vial. To this, pipette 1.08 microliters of PEO-b-PBD copolymer.

Carefully blow a gentle stream of argon gas into the glass vial while rotating the vial to evaporate the chloroform. Then pipette 1.2 milliliters of light mineral oil into the glass vial. Vortex the lipid and oil at maximum speed for 10 to 20 seconds.

Place the glass vial in an oven at around 50 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes before vortexing for an additional 10 to 20 seconds at maximum speed. Next, pipette 270 microliters of the GUV outer solution into a 1.5-milliliter microcentrifuge tube. To this, pipette 15 microliters each of five molar sodium chloride and 4.5 molar potassium chloride.

Gently pipette 300 microliters of lipid and oil mixture on top of the GUV outer solution. After incubation, assemble a CFE reaction by pipetting Solutions 1 to 3, DNA plasmid encoding for soluble sfGFP or variants of glutamate receptor sfGFP, murine RNAse, and one molar sucrose into a vial. Add ultrapure deionized water to bring the reaction volume to 20 microliters.

Add 600 microliters of the lipid-oil mixture to the microcentrifuge tube containing the 20-microliter reaction mixture. Pipette up and down vigorously for one minute to emulsify the reaction. Gently layer the inner emulsion on top of the oil layer in the tube.

Centrifuge for 10 minutes at 2000 g at four degrees Celsius. Next, carefully pipette out the excess oil and outer solution from the microcentrifuge tube. Gently mix the GUV pellet in the remaining solution to resuspend it.

Transfer the GUV solution to a clean 96-well clear flat bottom plate for incubation. Transfer the sealed plate into a plate reader to incubate at 37 degrees Celsius for five to six hours. After incubation, place the plate on an inverted confocal microscope.

Focus on a region of interest containing the GUVs, then capture the images at an excitation wavelength of 488 nanometers. Save the images in the TIFF format. Open the images in an image processing software.

Click on the Brightness/Contrast setting panel to open it. Then adjust the brightness and contrast to make the fluorescent proteins visible. The wild-type glutamate receptor cell-free expression reactions encapsulated in GUV demonstrated excellent expression and membrane localization.

PRSP-glutamate receptor was prone to aggregation and punctate formation. The soluble sfGFP was expressed in GUVS and stayed in the GUV lumen.