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Towards a Minimal Cell
A Gallery of Giant Liposomes 
by Jorge Bernardino de la Serna
University of Southern Denmark

One of the most ambitious endeavors of synthetic biology is creating “minimal cells” that fully recapitulate the functions of a natural cell—they capture energy, maintain ion gradients, store information, and mutate.

Although such technologies are still far on the horizon, researchers have made great progress in creating “semi-synthetic cells” that can mimic specific cellular tasks, such as protein production and synthesis of lipid membranes.

Many of these artificial cells reside inside liposomes, artificial vesicles each comprised of a lipid bilayer.

Technical Details
Each micrograph shows a giant liposome ~20-50µm in diameter comprised of fats and proteins from the surface of the mammalian lung alveoli without any chemical treatment. The liposomes are directly isolated from a lung lavage.

Each micrograph was acquired at a different temperature or has varying composition of native fats and proteins.

Images obtained with a Laser Scanning Confocal inverted microscope with either conventional fluorescent excitation or two-photon excitation.

Source: Cell