Intercellular communication in synthetic protocells is often constrained by passive diffusion, leading to signal attenuation and spurious activation that limit functional outcomes. Here, we report a programmable communication framework that integrates logic-gated DNA signal processing with cascade amplification to enable high-fidelity chemical messaging between synthetic sender and receiver protocells. Sender protocells are equipped with membrane-anchored DNA logic circuits that release a messenger strand only upon dual-input recognition, while receiver protocells decode the transmitted signal through a surface-confined hybridization chain reaction that amplifies the response and suppresses false-positive activation. Beyond information transfer, the amplified signal is converted into functional execution by recruiting a photosensitizer to the receiver membrane, enabling light-triggered modulation of membrane integrity and controlled molecular transport. Together, this logic-controlled and cascade-amplified communication system establishes a signal-to-function transduction pathway in synthetic protocell communities, providing a versatile strategy for constructing synthetic multicellular networks with enhanced communication fidelity, long-range signaling capability, and programmable downstream responses.
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Liu et al. (2026) studied this question.
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