Biomedical engineering researchers from the University of Cincinnati recently developed an artificial pore capable of transmitting nanoscale materials through a membrane.
This new information might lead to a method for discerning what individual bases make up traversing DNA strands. Translating the DNA will aid scientists to examine the cause of inherited diseases, such as breast cancer.
Nanotechnology is a broad scientific term for studying the extremely small (10 to the negative nine meter). A soccer ball compared to Earth is approximately the same ratio.
Professor Peixuan Guo, PhD, of the College of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the NIH Nanomedicine Development Center is a co-author of the research paper, “Translocation of double-stranded DNA through membrane-adapted phi29 motor protein nanopores.” The periodical Nature Nanotechnology published the piece.
The process consisted of incorporating the nanopore of the phi29 DNA motor into the membrane of a liposome or into flat membrane sheets and the passing of double-stranded DNA through the pore. The phi29 DNA-packaging nanomotor allows the passing to occur. The motor is one of the strongest biological motors produced, according to the paper.
“Nanomotors are molecular devices capable of converting energy into movement,” said Jia Geng, graduate student and research assistant in Guo’s lab. “Molecular motor proteins found in living cells can be integrated into molecular motors implanted in artificial devices.”
Guo designed the project and led the team during its joint investigation and has been working on the phi29 DNA packaging motor for 25 years.
“In a cell, nanomotors are small proteins that use chemical energy to do something useful, such as transport molecular cargo,” said David Wendell, PhD, research assistant professor at CEAS.
The artificial pore, which is basically a nonreactive hole, allows objects about the size of DNA to pass through it. An RNA-powered nanomotor was used in development of the pore.
Researchers needed to break down the process into something controllable.
“The incorporation of the core of viral DNA packaging motor will provide an artificial system for the studies on the mechanism of DNA transport through the channel,” said Peng Jing, a co-author of the paper. “Many viruses contain DNA packaging motors. Similar approaches can be applied to other viral systems."
Nanoscience works to develop methods for assembling and testing things on a molecular level, Wendell said.
This work could develop a single pore DNA sequencing device.
Through study, researchers will be able to identify and describe materials traveling though the membrane.
“First, this virus nanopore will provide a powerful tool to study the mechanism of virus infection and help us to understand better some critical biological processes,” said Jia Geng, graduate student and research assistant in Guo’s lab. “Second, this nanopore capable of double-stranded DNA translocation has the potential in sensing and in DNA sequencing application.”
Currently, no man-made nanodevice is available to pump DNA, RNA or remedial molecules into targeted cells.
There is also potential for the study to be applied in nanomedicines.
“The study is the next step in research on using nanomotors to package and deliver therapeutic agents directly to infected cells,” Guo said.
Nanoscience has the capability of being used as a ‘detection machine’ for early diagnosis of diseases. Gene delivery or in the therapy of cancer, inherited diseases or viral infections are possible uses also.
Co-authors of the study include UC research assistant professor David Wendell, PhD, postdoctoral fellow Peng Jing, PhD, graduate students Jia Geng and Tae Jin Lee and former post-doctoral fellow Varuni Subramaniam and Carlo Montemagno, dean of CEAS.
“Without teamwork and interdisciplinary collaboration, this successful discovery would not be possible,” Guo said.
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