Printing Biology for Advanced Synthetic Biosystem

Printing technologies represent a powerful tool for the direct micro- and nano- fabrication of biomolecular structures at the interface between life and materials sciences (Arrabito et al., 2012). Their continuous development over the last years has permitted the onset of man-made biosystems with customizable dimensions (from the micron-scale down to the nanometer scale), composition (organic molecules, DNA, proteins, phospholipids), and relevant functions (molecular interactions, drug screening, cellular biointerfaces, cell-like compartments). In this work, we show the possibility to leverage the fabrication of a wide class of solid-supported or liquid-liquid based synthetic compartments by printing tools at different scales. Scanning probe lithography methodologies will be shown for sub- cellular scale manipulation of living cells or for studies of molecular interactions onto porous surfaces. In particular, DNA-based protein immobilization coupled with dip-pen or polymer pens lithography permits the scalable fabrication of single-cell biochips (Arrabito et al., 2013; Arrabito et al., 2014). Inkjet printing will be shown for the fabrication of size scalable aqueous or oil-based synthetic compartments leading to molecular interaction studies at solid-liquid or liquid-liquid interfaces. The effect of droplet downsizing down to the femtoliter scale will be shown to affect the molecular interactions within aqueous compartments, mimicking the behaviour observed in cellular organells, in terms of molecular confinement and molecular crowding effects (Arrabito et al., 2019). In the case of oil-based compartments, fragmentation phenomena at surfactant-laden water-based interfaces bring to the formation of femtoliter- scale oil compartments detected by a microfluidic platform (Arrabito et al., 2019).