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Posted: Dec 01, 2015


(Nanowerk News) Physical chemists have devised a rolling DNA-based motor that's 1,000 times faster than any other synthetic DNA motor, giving it potential for real-world applications, such as disease diagnostics. Nature Nanotechnology is publishing the finding ("High-speed DNA-based rolling motors powered by RNase H").
"Unlike other synthetic DNA-based motors, which use legs to 'walk' like tiny robots, ours is the first rolling DNA motor, making it far faster and more robust," says Khalid Salaita, the Emory University chemist who led the research. "It's like the biological equivalent of the invention of the wheel for the field of DNA machines."
Khalid Salaita, Emory University
'Ours is the first rolling DNA motor, making it far faster and more robust,' says Khalid Salaita, the Emory University chemist who led he research.
"Our method offers a way of doing low-cost, low-tech diagnostics in settings with limited resources," Salaita says.
The field of synthetic DNA-based motors, also known as nano-walkers, is about 15 years old. Researchers are striving to duplicate the action of nature's nano-walkers. Myosin, for example, are tiny biological mechanisms that "walk" on filaments to carry nutrients throughout the human body.
"It's the ultimate in science fiction," Salaita says of the quest to create tiny robots, or nano-bots, that could be programmed to do your bidding. "People have dreamed of sending in nano-bots to deliver drugs or to repair problems in the human body."
So far, however, mankind's efforts have fallen far short of nature's myosin, which speeds effortlessly about its biological errands. "The ability of myosin to convert chemical energy into mechanical energy is astounding," Salaita says. "They are the most efficient motors we know of today."
Kevin Yehl, a post-doctoral fellow in the Salaita lab, had the idea of constructing a DNA-based motor using a micron-sized glass sphere. Hundreds of DNA strands, or "legs," are allowed to bind to the sphere. These DNA legs are placed on a glass slide coated with the reactant: RNA.
"It's called a burnt-bridge mechanism," Salaita explains. "Wherever the DNA legs step, they trample and destroy the reactant. They have to keep moving and step where they haven't stepped in order to find more reactant."
"Our DNA-based motor can travel one centimeter in seven days, instead of 20 years, making it 1,000 times faster than the older versions," Salaita says. "In fact, nature's myosin motors are only 10 times faster than ours, and it took them billions of years to evolve."
"Using a smart phone, we can get a readout for anything that's interfering with the enzyme-substrate reaction, because that will change the speed of the particle," Salaita says. "For instance, we can detect a single mutation in a DNA strand."
"It's the first example of a synthetic molecular motor that goes in a straight line without a track or a magnetic field to guide it," Salaita says.
Source: Emory Health Sciences
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