Feedback-Induced and Oscillating pH Regulation of a Binary Enzyme–Polymersomes System
Xueyi Wang, Sílvia Moreno, Susanne Boye, Ping Wen, Kehu Zhang, Petr Formánek, Albena Lederer, Brigitte Voit, Dietmar Appelhans
Abstract
The stimuli-triggered regulating ability is a basic characteristic of biological systems, and it is always cyclic in nature. To mimic this stimuli-triggered regulation process for the construction of artificial cellular structures and functions is a challenge. Here, we present the development of artificial organelles system (AOS) with stimuli-trigged regulation ability consisting of the coexisting glucose oxidase-(GOx)-loaded pH-responsive polymersomes A (GOx-Psomes A) and urease-loaded pH-responsive polymersomes B (Urease-Psomes B) with orthogonal-responsive membranes. The addition of chemical fuels triggers the out-of-equilibrium state of AOS at which the pH decreases (glucose as fuel) or increases (urea as fuel). The pH change results in the catalytic “on” or “off” switch of GOx-Psomes A and Urease-Psomes B at different states due to their different pH responsiveness. Thus, this AOS with feedback-induced and oscillating pH-regulating ability paves the way for the construction of artificial eukaryotic cell biomimetics with controlled communications and metabolism mimicking.