- Fabrini, Giacomo;
- Farag, Nada;
- Nuccio, Sabrina;
- Li, Shiyi;
- Stewart, Jaimie;
- Tang, Anli;
- McCoy, Reece;
- Owens, Róisín;
- Rothemund, Paul;
- Franco, Elisa;
- Di Antonio, Marco;
- Di Michele, Lorenzo
Condensation of RNA and proteins is central to cellular functions, and the ability to program it would be valuable in synthetic biology and synthetic cell science. Here we introduce a modular platform for engineering synthetic RNA condensates from tailor-made, branched RNA nanostructures that fold and assemble co-transcriptionally. Up to three orthogonal condensates can form simultaneously and selectively accumulate fluorophores through embedded fluorescent light-up aptamers. The RNA condensates can be expressed within synthetic cells to produce membrane-less organelles with a controlled number and relative size, and showing the ability to capture proteins using selective protein-binding aptamers. The affinity between otherwise orthogonal nanostructures can be modulated by introducing dedicated linker constructs, enabling the production of bi-phasic RNA condensates with a prescribed degree of interphase mixing and diverse morphologies. The in situ expression of programmable RNA condensates could underpin the spatial organization of functionalities in both biological and synthetic cells.