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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Sep 14.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Chem. 2016 Mar 14;8(5):448–453. doi: 10.1038/nchem.2475

Figure 1. Regulation of enzyme activity in model protocells by dissociation of short complementary oligonucleotides.

Figure 1

Mixed fatty acid-glycerol ester-phospholipid vesicles that contain split ribozymes (blue) and high concentrations of short oligonucleotides (red) exhibit no ribozyme activity, due to inhibition by duplex formation between the ribozyme fragments and complementary oligonucleotides (top left). When mixed with vesicles lacking phospholipid (bottom left), the phospholipid-containing vesicles grow at the expense of the phospholipid-lacking vesicles. This growth results in dilution of vesicle contents, inhibitor dissociation, and ribozyme reconstitution (right), increasing catalyst activity in the enlarged vesicles.