PURE makes PURE: reconstitution of the PURE cell-free system from self-synthesized proteins (opens in new tab)

Building a universal biochemical constructor, an autonomously self-replicating biochemical system, remains a challenge in synthetic biology. The PURE cell-free system is a suitable starting point for exploring self-regeneration, and its 36 non-ribosome proteins constitute the primary macromolecular components that must be regenerated. Here, we demonstrate that the PURE system can be reconstituted from proteins synthesized by PURE itself. We first show that each of the 36 non-ribosome proteins...