Synthetic molecular communication (MC) is a new communication engineering paradigm which is expected to enable revolutionary applications such as smart drug delivery and real-time health monitoring. The design and implementation of synthetic MC systems (MCSs) at nano- and microscale is very challenging. This is particularly true for synthetic MCSs employing biological components as transmitters and receivers or as interfaces with natural biological MCSs. Nevertheless, since such biological components have been optimized by nature over billions of years, using them in synthetic MCSs is highly promising. This paper provides a survey of biological components that can potentially serve as the main building blocks, i.e., transmitter, receiver, and signaling particles, for the design and implementation of synthetic MCSs. Nature uses a large variety of signaling particles of different sizes and with vastly different properties for communication among biological entities. Here, we focus on three important classes of signaling particles: cations (specifically protons and calcium ions), neurotransmitters (specifically acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin), and phosphopeptides. For each of these candidate signaling particles, we present several specific transmitter and receiver structures mainly built upon proteins that are capable of performing the distinct physiological functionalities required from the transmitters and receivers of MCSs. Moreover, we present options for both microscale implementation of MCSs as well as the micro-to-macroscale interfaces needed for experimental evaluation of MCSs. Furthermore, we outline new research directions for the implementation and the theoretical design and analysis of the proposed transmitter and receiver architectures.

中文翻译：

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合成分子通信系统的生物构建块调查

合成分子通信（MC）是一种新的通信工程范式，有望实现智能给药和实时健康监测等革命性应用。纳米和微米级合成 MC 系统 (MCS) 的设计和实施非常具有挑战性。对于采用生物成分作为发射器和接收器或作为与天然生物 MCS 接口的合成 MCS，尤其如此。尽管如此，由于这些生物成分已经经过数十亿年的自然优化，因此在合成 MCS 中使用它们是非常有前途的。本文提供了对生物成分的调查，这些成分可能作为主要构建块，即发射器、接收器和信号粒子，用于设计和实现合成 MCS。大自然使用大量不同大小和性质迥异的信号粒子在生物实体之间进行通信。在这里，我们关注三类重要的信号粒子：阳离子（特别是质子和钙离子）、神经递质（特别是乙酰胆碱、多巴胺和血清素）和磷酸肽。对于这些候选信号粒子中的每一个，我们提出了几种特定的发射器和接收器结构，主要建立在能够执行 MCS 的发射器和接收器所需的不同生理功能的蛋白质上。此外，我们提出了 MCS 的微观实施以及 MCS 实验评估所需的微观到宏观接口的选项。此外，