Reconstitution Methods in Cell Biology

Reconstitution of cellular phenomena is a powerful approach for investigating the biochemical and biophysical processes that sustain life. Cell-free reconstitution is the biologist’s equivalent of taking apart a radio and piecing it back together. By understanding how the component parts behave, we can more accurately determine how they drive essential cell functions. Cellular behavior emerges from a complex network of precisely organized biochemical reactions that can sometimes be re-created in the test tube, making it possible to directly study relationships between biomolecules including proteins, membranes, and nucleic acids. These approaches allow researchers to precisely manipulate these components in ways that are either impossible or extremely difficult in cells. The development of cell-free experimental tools has advanced our understanding of protein function, subcellular assemblies, membrane dynamics, genome organization, and more.

Modern cell-free reconstitution approaches are highly interdisciplinary, bringing together researchers with expertise in biochemistry, biophysics, engineering, computational modeling, and cell biology. Collaboration between investigators with diverse perspectives drives new insight and leads to innovative experimental approaches that transform our understanding of cellular phenomena. These efforts have rapidly expanded the “scientific toolkit” for biochemical reconstitution experimentation. Therefore, we aim to highlight research and perspectives from researchers applying cross-disciplinary approaches to cell-free reconstitution systems. This Research Topic will showcase the diversity of reconstitution approaches currently being used to investigate fundamental cell biology.

In this Research Topic, we aim to highlight new scientific understanding gained through biochemical reconstitution approaches. We invite primary data papers, perspectives, and reviews that address the following topics:

● Biological membranes

● Cytoskeletal assemblies and dynamics

● Self-organization and patterning

● Mechanisms of size and scaling

● Chromatin organization

● Reconstitution of prokaryotic systems

● Synthetic and artificial cells

● Bioengineering

This list is not exhaustive and we welcome scholarly work relevant to the field of cell-free reconstitution.

A full list of accepted article types, including descriptions, can be found at this link.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Reconstitution, cell-free, synthetic, bottom-up, biophysics, modeling

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.