Facile Formation of Giant Elastin-like Polypeptide Vesicles as Synthetic Cells

vesicles that are more robust and stable were developed as a new chassis material for synthetic cells. Here we demonstrate the facile and robust generation of giant peptide vesicles made of elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) by using an emulsion transfer method. We show the robust nature of the peptide vesicles by challenging them with chemical (Triton-X 100) and physical (osmotic) stresses. We find that these peptide vesicles can stably encapsulate biomolecules and can host cell-free expression reactions. Lastly, we show incorporation of another cell-free expressed amphiphilic ELP into existing peptide vesicles’ membrane, demonstrating a potential approach to grow ELP vesicles. Since ELPs are genetically encoded, the approaches presented here provide exciting opportunities to engineer synthetic cell membranes.