The Minimal Cell

1. Towards a Minimal Cytoplasm
Jacqueline D. Keighron, Christine D. Keating

2. Evolution of the Cell’s Mechanical Design
David Boal, Cameron Forde

3. On the Minimal Requirements for the Emergence of Cellular Crowding
Luis Acerenza, Martín Graña

4. How Small is Small?
Peter B. Moore

5. Biochemical Reactions in the Crowded and Confined Physiological Environment: Physical Chemistry Meets Synthetic Biology
Allen P. Minton, Germán Rivas

6. The Influence of Environment and Metabolic Capacity on the Size of a Microorganism
W. Andrew Lancaster, Michael W. W. Adams

7. The Minimal Cell and Life’s Origin: Role of Water and Aqueous Interfaces
Gerald H. Pollack, Xavier Figueroa, Qing Zhao

8. Membrane Self-Assembly Processes: Steps Toward the First Cellular Life
Pierre-Alain Monnard, David W. Deamer

9. Approaches to Building Chemical Cells/Chells: Examples of Relevant Mechanistic ‘Couples’
Paul M. Gardner, Benjamin G. Davis

10. Construction of an In Vitro Model of a Living Cellular System
K. Yoshikawa, S. M. Nomura, K. Tsumoto, K. Takiguchi

11. New and Unexpected Insights on the Formation of Protocells from a Synthetic Biology Approach: The Case of Entrapment of Biomacromolecules and Protein Synthesis Inside Vesicles
Pasquale Stano, Tereza Pereira Souza, Matteo Allegretti, Yutetsu Kuruma, Pier Luigi Luisi

12. Liposomes Mediated Synthesis of Membrane Proteins
Yutetsu Kuruma

13. Giant Unilamellar Vesicles: From Minimal Membrane Systems to Minimal Cells?
Petra Schwille

14. Theoretical Approaches to Ribocell Modeling
Fabio Mavelli

15. Evolvability and Self-Replication of Genetic Information in Liposomes
Tomoaki Matsuura, Norikazu Ichihashi, Takeshi Sunami, Hiroshi Kita, Hiroaki Suzuki, Tetsuya Yomo

Keywords: Biomedicine, Biomedicine general, Biotechnology, Cell Biology, Gene Expression