Designing Tunable DNA Condensates to Control Membrane Budding Transformation in Synthetic Cells.

Wetting interactions between biomolecular condensates and lipid membranes have demonstrated great potential to induce large-scale membrane transformations in synthetic cells. However, the ability to functionalize existing condensates and control their interactions with membranes is limited, restricting their utility in engineering controlled wetting behavior. Here, fully programmable condensates based on DNA Y-motifs are introduced to engineer precisely tunable wetting behavior.