Persistent ATP-Concentration Gradients in a Hydrogel Sustained by Chemical Fuel Consumption.
Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
confidence
Key findings
Demonstrated formation and sustained ATP gradients in agarose gel via phosphocreatine fuel and enzyme injection; fluorescence patterns emerged in response to gradients.
View source on PubMed (PMID 36420591) ↗
- Sample size
- Not reported
- Population
- In vitro agarose gel system (no human or animal subjects)
- Dosing
- Phosphocreatine as chemical fuel; local enzyme injection
- Duration
- Not reported
- Route
- In vitro gel injection
- Blinding
- not_reported
- Controls
- not_reported
- Drug class
- supplement
Full abstract
We show the formation of macroscopic ATP-concentrations in an agarose gel and demonstrate that these gradients can be sustained in time at the expense of the consumption of a chemical fuel. The approach relies on the spatially controlled activation of ATP-producing and ATP-consuming reactions through the local injection of enzymes in the matrix. The reaction-diffusion system is maintained in a stationary non-equilibrium state as long as chemical fuel, phosphocreatine, is present. The reaction-diffusion system is coupled to a supramolecular system composed of monolayer protected gold nanoparticles and a fluorescent probe. As a result of this coupling, fluorescence signals emerge spontaneously in response to the ATP-concentration gradients. We show that the approach permits the rational formation of complex fluorescence patterns that change over time as a function of the evolution of the ATP-concentrations present in the system.