近日，浙江大学田良飞团队研究了空间调节化学梯度中的原始细胞生存网络。相关论文于2025年11月25日发表在《美国化学会志》上。

将分子层面的化学网络与宏观功能相耦合，是赋予类生命物体和材料基本自主性的关键一步。

研究组将一个二元原细胞群落网络中的负反馈回路通过暴露于激活剂的单向反应-扩散梯度，与更高层次的空间动态行为产生关联。该激活剂触发人工裂解并释放原细胞包裹的酶，从而在时空上限制膜解体过程，在均匀分布或分隔的二元群落中形成明确的原细胞生存边界。

研究组追踪了非平衡条件下的集体防御响应，发现空间对称性破缺与局部过氧化氢梯度的生成相关，并受限制效应和边缘效应的显著影响——这些因素在水凝胶中调控了原细胞生存网络的空间分布。所有结果均通过基于反应-扩散模型的计算机模拟验证。总体而言，该工作提供了一种通用方法，用于实现并解析在非平衡条件下化学网络化原细胞群落的空间动态行为和集体响应，并为构建具有梯度激活响应的准智能时空行为的自保护类细胞系统提供了路径。

附：英文原文

Title: Protocell Survival Networks in Spatially Modulated Chemical Gradients

Author: Shuqi Wu, Iuliia Myrgorodska, Mei Li, Pengfei Xu, Stephen Mann, Liangfei Tian

Issue&Volume: November 25, 2025

Abstract: Coupling molecular-level chemical networks to macroscopic functions provides a step toward the implementation of rudimentary forms of agency in life-like objects and materials. Here, a negative feedback circuit within a networked binary protocell community is linked to higher-level spatial dynamic behaviors by exposing the consortium to a unidirectional reaction-diffusion gradient of an activator. The activator initiates artificial lysis and release of protocell-encapsulated enzymes, which spatiotemporally restrict membrane disassembly to generate distinct protocell survival boundaries within homogeneously distributed or segregated arrangements of the binary populations. We track the collective defense responses under nonequilibrium conditions and show that spatial symmetry breaking is related to the local generation of a hydrogen peroxide gradient and is strongly influenced by confinement and edge effects that spatially modulate the protocell survival networks formed within the hydrogels. In each case, the results are validated by computer simulations based on reaction-diffusion modeling. Overall, our work presents a general approach to implementing and decoding the spatial dynamic behaviors and collective responses of chemically networked protocell communities operating under nonequilibrium conditions and provides a pathway to self-protective cytomimetic systems that exhibit quasi-intelligent spatiotemporal behaviors in response to gradient-mediated activation.

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c11734

Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5c11734