earticle

영어

Nanotechnology is rapidly growing as a cutting-edge technology that will fundamentally change our future life. Given the physical limitations of conventional lithography technology, bottom-up approaches motivated by biological principles are burgeoning as a major trend, i.e. bio-inspired
nanotechnology.1-4 Biomolecules, although they have evolved to fulfill natural needs, are recently reengineered to perform specific nanoscale tasks that nature has not tried yet. DNA is a versatile construction material that can be programmed to self-assemble into nanoscale structures based on specific complementarity between bases.5-6 DNA-programmed protein nanostructures responsive to external signals are promising for biomedical applications including
biosensors and drug delivery materials. We designed and constructed stimuli-responsive nanostructured biomaterials consisting of proteins and DNA, which lead to smart materials of which self-assembly is controlled in response to the presence of target signals such as DNA oligonucleotides and biochemicals.
We investigated two such biomaterials of which structural changes are controlled by elaborate sequence design of DNA crosslinkers: 1) SNP sensor materials of which dissociation rate constants are dramatically changed by single nucleotide mutations in target DNA sequences and 2) smart materials switchable by adenosine for programmable drug release. These examples illustrate how DNA programmability can be harnessed to construct smart biomaterials
displaying new functionalities and structural designability for biomedical applications.