Assembly and Structure of Primitive Membraneless DNA Liquid Crystal Coacervates

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Compartmentalization supported the eventual assembly and evolution of protocells on early Earth. Recent trends have resulted in investigation of membraneless droplets as primitive compartments. Membraneless droplets, such as DNA peptide coacervates, could have been present on early Earth due to the potential prevalence of amino acid and/or nucleotide-based polymers. Here, we introduce a peptide/DNA coacervate system where the structural complexity can be increased through incorporation of DNA liquid crystals (LC). LC-coacervates form through peptide-DNA binding (coacervation) and DNA stacking (LC formation), and can transition through all known LC mesophases through variations in salinity, heat, and hydration. We predict that the increased structural complexity of LC phases applied to coacervates could help to increase the functional complexity of primitive compartment systems, perhaps even extending applications to modern engineering fields.