本期文章：《细胞》：Online/在线发表

美国哈佛医学院George M. Church团队开发出在细菌和人类细胞中进行可编程细胞组装的平台。相关论文于2022年9月1日在线发表在《细胞》杂志上。

研究人员展示了"helixCAM"，一个通过在细胞表面呈现盘状线圈肽来设计合成细胞粘附分子（CAM）的平台。基于卷曲螺旋相互作用原理，研究人员建立了一套合理设计的helixCAM库，从而发现了更多高性能的helixCAM对。研究人员将这个helixCAM工具箱应用于各种多细胞工程应用，如球状分层、粘附细胞靶向和表面图案化。

据介绍，细胞之间的相互作用对于信号传递和创造结构是不可缺少的。引导精确的细胞-细胞相互作用的能力对于工程组织、理解信号通路和指导免疫细胞靶向是非常强大的。在人类，细胞间的相互作用是由CAM介导的。然而，内源性CAM是由许多细胞天然表达的，而且往往具有交叉反应性，使得它们不适合用于编程特定的相互作用。

附：英文原文

Title: helixCAM: A platform for programmable cellular assembly in bacteria and human cells

Author: George Chao, Timothy M. Wannier, Clair Gutierrez, Nathaniel C. Borders, Evan Appleton, Anjali Chadha, Tina Lebar, George M. Church

Issue&Volume: 2022-09-01

Abstract: Interactions between cells are indispensable for signaling and creating structure.The ability to direct precise cell-cell interactions would be powerful for engineeringtissues, understanding signaling pathways, and directing immune cell targeting. Inhumans, intercellular interactions are mediated by cell adhesion molecules (CAMs).However, endogenous CAMs are natively expressed by many cells and tend to have cross-reactivity,making them unsuitable for programming specific interactions. Here, we showcase “helixCAM,”a platform for engineering synthetic CAMs by presenting coiled-coil peptides on thecell surface. helixCAMs were able to create specific cell-cell interactions and directpatterned aggregate formation in bacteria and human cells. Based on coiled-coil interactionprinciples, we built a set of rationally designed helixCAM libraries, which led tothe discovery of additional high-performance helixCAM pairs. We applied this helixCAMtoolkit for various multicellular engineering applications, such as spherical layering,adherent cell targeting, and surface patterning.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.012