Living systems use chemical fuel-driven supramolecular polymers such as actin to control important cell functions. Fuel molecules like adenosine triphosphate (ATP) are used to control when and where such polymers should assemble and disassemble. The cell supplies fresh ATP into the cytosol and removes waste products to allow assembly/disassembly cycles to be sustained in steady-states. Artificial fuel-driven supramolecular polymers have been developed in recent years, but keeping them in sustained non-equilibrium steady-states (NESS) has proven challenging. Here we show a supramolecular polymer that can be kept in various NESS, inside a reactor where ATP is added and waste removed continuously. Depending on the ATP concentration the system can be in a dissipative non-equilibrium state that is near equilibrium, or in a far-from-equilibrium state where emergent chemical phenomena can occur. Assembly and disassembly of our polymer is regulated by enzymatic phosphorylation and dephosphorylation, respectively. We believe that our approach can be applied to other stimuli-responsive or transiently dissipative materials to achieve sustained NESS in artificial systems.

Non-equilibrium steady states in supramolecular polymerization

255th National Meeting (2018)

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