Membrane Assembly: Spontaneous Structuration in Coacervate‐Based Protocells by Polyoxometalate‐Mediated Membrane Assembly (Small 9/2014)

Molecularly crowded, polyelectrolyte/ribonucleotide-enriched coacervate droplets are transformed into membrane-bounded subdivided vesicles using a polyoxometalatemediated surface-templating procedur e. As S. Mann and co-workers report on page 1830, this transition results in reconstruction of the coacervate micro-droplets into novel, three-tiered micro-compartments containing organic dyes, ssDNA, magnetic nanoparticles or enzymes. The encapsulated proteins are inaccessible to proteases in the external medium, and can be exploited for the spatial localization and coupling of enzyme cascade reactions generated within single or between multiple populations of the coacervate vesicles.