Research
Conformationally driven negative chemotaxis in synthetic vesicles
Nature · By Danni Wang ·
The Brief
- Nature Chemistry published the study online on 11 November 2026 (doi 10.1038/s41557-026-02298-0).
- Negative chemotaxis, movement away from a chemical gradient, is hard to achieve in artificial systems without catalytic designs.
- The study reports that intrinsic membrane conformational dynamics generate interfacial behaviour that produces negative chemotaxis in synthetic vesicles.
Why it matters
It suggests that membrane shape dynamics alone, without catalytic components, can drive directed movement in synthetic vesicles, a useful design principle for artificial cell and microswimmer research.
Who’s affected
- synthetic biologists and chemists working on artificial cells
- researchers in soft matter and active matter physics
- #chemotaxis
- #synthetic vesicles
- #membrane dynamics
- #artificial cells
- #soft matter
Nature Chemistry, Published online: 11 November 2026; doi:10.1038/s41557-026-02298-0 Achieving negative chemotaxis without catalytic designs remains challenging in artificial systems. Now it has been shown that intrinsic membrane conformational dynamics generate interfacial…
Timeline
Published online in Nature Chemistry
nature.com
Conformationally driven negative chemotaxis in synthetic vesicles