Thylakoid Containing Artificial Cells for the Inhibition Investigation of Light-Driven Electron Transfer during Photosynthesis

The fabrication of artificial cells containing nature components is challenging. Herein we construct a thylakoid containing artificial cell (TA-cell) by forming multicompartmental structure inside giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) using osmotic stress. The thylakoids are selectively loaded inside each compartment in GUVs to mimic "chloroplast". The TA-cells are able to carry out photosynthesis upon light on. The TA-cells keep their 50% functionality of electron transfer for 12 days which is twice of those of free thylakoids. Using TA-cells the inhibition of 3-(34-dichlorophenyl)-11-dimethylurea (DCMU) and heavy metal ions (Hg2+ Cu2+ Cd2+ Pb2+ and Zn2+) on the electron transfer process in TA-cells is systematically investigated. Their half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values are 36.23 +/- 1.87 0.02 +/- 0.01 0.42 +/- 0.08 0.82 +/- 0.12 1.97 +/- 0.21 and 4.08 +/- 0.18 mu M respectively. Hg2+ is the most toxic ion for the photosynthesis process among these five heavy metal ions. This biomimetic system can be expanded to study other processes during the photosynthesis. The TA-cells pave a way to fabricate more complicated nature component containing artificial cells.