Scientists Create Synthetic Cell Capable of Growth and Division
University of Minnesota researchers have developed a life-like synthetic cell from nonliving components, a development that could pave the way for artificial organisms but also raises biosafety concerns.
Scientists at the University of Minnesota have announced the creation of a synthetic cell that exhibits key life-like characteristics, including growth, replication of its genetic material, and division. Dubbed "SpudCell," this laboratory-made system is assembled entirely from nonliving components, marking a significant step toward the construction of artificial life, according to the research team.
The findings were published as a preprint on bioRxiv and have not yet undergone peer review. The researchers describe SpudCell as the most life-like synthetic cell developed to date. Unlike previous approaches that began with living organisms, SpudCell was constructed from chemically defined, nonliving materials.
SpudCell possesses a genome of 90,000 base pairs, enabling it to produce proteins, replicate its DNA, feed, grow, and divide into daughter cells. In experiments, researchers introduced a genetic mutation that accelerated the growth of some synthetic cells. Over several generations, these faster-growing cells became more prevalent, demonstrating a basic form of natural selection.
This work represents a "major step toward building artificial life," the researchers stated, and could provide a foundation for "fully artificial organisms" designed for biotechnology applications. However, they noted that the synthetic cells are not self-sustaining and require carefully controlled laboratory conditions, external nutrients, and specialized components to function. The cells also rely on ribosomes purified from E. coli bacteria, and after five generations, only about 30% of daughter cells inherited the complete synthetic genome.
Limitations mean the system falls short of creating self-sustaining artificial life, but the researchers contend it demonstrates that many defining characteristics of life can be recreated from nonliving materials. The team also acknowledged that increasingly sophisticated synthetic cells could introduce new biosafety and biosecurity questions, highlighting an "urgent need to develop a safety and security framework for future synthetic cell engineering."
Future research aims to enhance the self-sufficiency of synthetic cells by enabling them to regenerate more of their own molecular machinery, improve the distribution of genomes during cell division, and allow mutations to arise naturally. The University of Minnesota research team was contacted for comment on the matter.