Figure 2.

Production of self-assembled polymersomes. Self-assembled polymersomes can be created utilizing microfluidic techniques to introduce a cocktail containing the machinery required for protein synthesis (inner layer, left) through a microchannel into an oil layer-containing polymer (middle layer). The nascently–formed spheres flow through the oil layer into an aqueous phase, forming polymersomes with the outer blue PEG-PLA shown on the left. Cell-free protein production takes place in these constructs; for example, as cited in the main text, the bacterial protein MreB (orange spring) can be produced after which it spontaneously diffuses and inserts into the polymersome membrane.