Descripción del proyecto
Exosomas artificiales desvelan aspectos importantes de la comunicación del ARN
Diseñar sistemas vivos que imiten procesos biológicos clave constituye un gran reto. Al mismo tiempo, los sistemas sintéticos proporcionan una herramienta potente para estudiar las rutas de comunicación celular y comprender los procesos celulares. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos RNAhello parece haber encontrado una forma de estudiar la comunicación basada en el ARN en protocélulas artificiales. El método propuesto se inspira en los exosomas, vesículas secretadas por las células y que transportan diversas macromoléculas y facilitan la comunicación intercelular. RNAhello creará dichas vesículas a partir de polímeros y las utilizará como transportadores de ARNm entre distintas poblaciones de protocélulas. Los resultados proporcionarán conocimientos fundamentales sobre la transferencia de ácidos nucleicos y establecerá una herramienta potente para el descubrimiento de fármacos.
Objetivo
The mimicking of cellular communication pathways and genetic information transfer in synthetic systems is an important target for researchers. These artificial cell systems have the potential to increase understanding of biological and cellular processes, while also having potential applications in healthcare technologies. This project will involve the investigation of exciting new stimuli responsive and highly tuneable hierarchical polymer protocells, and their application in RNA-based communication. Previous generations of polymer protocells have been shown to allow diffusion based communication with small molecules and naked DNA strands – the project will expand upon this by investigating polymersomes as mRNA shuttles between distinct protocell populations. This exosome inspired system will allow the typically unstable mRNA molecules to be protected from degradation in the external medium, thus opening the door to much more lifelike systems, and possible therapeutic applications.
The proposed research project is strongly multidisciplinary, and involves a combination of polymer chemistry, nanomaterials engineering, cell biology, and imaging techniques. RNAhello includes both the transfer of knowledge to the host institution and the training of the candidate in new advanced techniques. Results have the potential to increase understanding of biological mechanisms in relation to the complex hurdle of the nucleic acid based transfer, whilst also providing innovative platform material for treatment of disease. Additional project goals include: engaging with the non-scientific public through outreach methods; gaining of further commercial training for potential exploitation of research; presentation of research results at international conferences; and the preparation of additional funding proposals.
Ámbito científico
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Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
5612 AE Eindhoven
Países Bajos