Small but mighty! A machine made from DNA material offers a lot of medical potential. Only time will tell whether we can actually use this to build probes with nanomotors that search for cancer cells. (Sergey Nivens/Adobe Stock)
Sounds kind of like science fiction: controllable engines made from DNA. But they already exist – and one day they will make nanofactories made of DNA work.
Such tinkering has no longer been fiction since 2006. At that time, Paul W. K. Rothemund from the California Institute of Technology first presented a way in which DNA could be folded into a desired position.
Now researchers have taken this technique further and developed a nano-turbine that spins using tiny DNA turbine blades.
Molecular The engine
move our world
Molecular motors are not only available in test tubes. they are loud spectrum for example, responsible for our muscles contracting.
To give you a better idea of what a molecular machine can do, think of the structure of a bacterium from biology class. They look spherical or rod-shaped and often have an extension called a flagellum. To put it simply, this scourge ensures locomotion. It drives the bacterium with a rotational movement.
The synthetic engine like the researchers used in their study dated October 26, 2023 describe, works similarly. The big difference: The tiny motor made from DNA molecules can rotate in a targeted manner and can therefore be compared to a shrunken turbine.
Three small turbine blades made of DNA helices (plural of helix) are built into a small pore and rotate in a predictable direction. They are driven by electric fields.
The idea for this has existed since 2015 and could be implemented for the first time in 2022. However, the researchers were only able to refine the project in 2023.
▶ Worth seeing: If you want to delve even deeper into how molecular machines work in our bodies, you can watch this six-minute YouTube video. Otherwise, you can read about the areas of application of these DNA engines in the next paragraph:
Link to YouTube content
DNA nanofactories and mini-probes for medical purposes
Possible uses for this miniature research can primarily be found in medicine. According to the spectrum, drugs could be administered in a targeted manner and chemical synthesis could be carried out in DNA nanofactories.
Particularly exciting: If the idea is developed further, such motors could perhaps one day power machines such as nano-probes. According to the spectrum, these could swim through your body to detect cancer cells.
However, this will still take a while – first we need to build and understand other, more complex DNA origami objects such as the turbine described above. We’ll tell you what exactly these “origami objects” are in the next section.
DNA origami as researchers’ bag of tricks
No joke, that’s actually what this technique is called. Because working with delicate DNA strands is not that easy. The DNA origami technique involves growing single-stranded DNA backbones in bacteria.
Finally, the researchers mix this strand in a solution with short strands of synthetic DNA. Think of it like a construction set. Depending on which synthetic additives are added, the final form changes accordingly.
This braid connects to the long strand and forces it into the desired shape. This is also how the DNA turbine was developed.
Since the origami technique is still quite new, its full potential cannot yet be fully estimated.
▶ For everyone interested: The DNA origami turbine described, which is in the nano-pore, is only between 25 and 27 nanometers (1 nm = 1 millionth of a millimeter) high and wide. Under laboratory conditions it reached a speed of up to 10 revolutions per second.
What do you think of this nano research? A realistic way to support our bodies or, despite all the approaches, more like science fiction? What other areas of application can you imagine for origami technology? What do you think of the idea of cancer-seeking probes? Feel free to write us your thoughts in the comments and discuss what could be possible with it.
