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DNA Self-Assembly Meets Nano Shape Shifting at Harvard's Wyss Institute
A team at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has created nanoscale devices made of DNA that can self-assemble and be programmed to move and change shape on demand.
Using DNA as the core for self-assembling and programmable nanoscale devices would be highly suitable for medical applications because DNA is both biocompatible and biodegradable, the research team added.
"This new self-assembly based nanofabrication technology could lead to nanoscale medical devices and drug delivery systems, such as virus mimics that introduce drugs directly into diseased cells," said Wyss Institute director Don Ingber, who was a co-investigator on the project. A nanoscale device that can spring open in response to a chemical or mechanical signal could ensure that drugs not only arrive at the intended target but are also released when and where desired.
Each nanoscale device, built at the scale of one billionth of a meter, is made of a circular, single-stranded DNA molecule. Once single strands are brought together with other short pieces of complementary DNA, they self-assemble into a predetermined 3D structure. For example, double helices fold up into larger, rigid linear struts that connect by intervening single-stranded DNA.
The DNA single strands pull the struts up into a 3D form, much like tethers pulls up tent poles to form a tent. The structure's strength and stability result from the way it distributes and balances the counteracting forces of tension and compression.
The work also illustrates a related architectural principle called “tensegrity,” which governs how cells control their shape at the microscale. Nanoscopic tensegrity devices could even reprogram human stem cells to regenerate injured organs and assist in tissue reengineering, said Tim Liedl, the study’s first author and now a professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
"These little Swiss Army knives can help us make all kinds of things that could be useful for advanced drug delivery and regenerative medicine," said lead investigator William Shih, Wyss core faculty member and associate professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at HMS and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "We also have a handy biological DNA Xerox machine that nature evolved for us," making these devices easy to manufacture.
This research was funded by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, National Institutes of Health, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellowship, Swedish Science Council Fellowship and Claudia Adams Barr Program Investigator award.
The work was published in the online journal Nature Nanotechnology.
"This new self-assembly based nanofabrication technology could lead to nanoscale medical devices and drug delivery systems, such as virus mimics that introduce drugs directly into diseased cells," said Wyss Institute director Don Ingber, who was a co-investigator on the project. A nanoscale device that can spring open in response to a chemical or mechanical signal could ensure that drugs not only arrive at the intended target but are also released when and where desired.
Each nanoscale device, built at the scale of one billionth of a meter, is made of a circular, single-stranded DNA molecule. Once single strands are brought together with other short pieces of complementary DNA, they self-assemble into a predetermined 3D structure. For example, double helices fold up into larger, rigid linear struts that connect by intervening single-stranded DNA.
The DNA single strands pull the struts up into a 3D form, much like tethers pulls up tent poles to form a tent. The structure's strength and stability result from the way it distributes and balances the counteracting forces of tension and compression.
The work also illustrates a related architectural principle called “tensegrity,” which governs how cells control their shape at the microscale. Nanoscopic tensegrity devices could even reprogram human stem cells to regenerate injured organs and assist in tissue reengineering, said Tim Liedl, the study’s first author and now a professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
"These little Swiss Army knives can help us make all kinds of things that could be useful for advanced drug delivery and regenerative medicine," said lead investigator William Shih, Wyss core faculty member and associate professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at HMS and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "We also have a handy biological DNA Xerox machine that nature evolved for us," making these devices easy to manufacture.
This research was funded by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, National Institutes of Health, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellowship, Swedish Science Council Fellowship and Claudia Adams Barr Program Investigator award.
The work was published in the online journal Nature Nanotechnology.