Release date: 2016-05-31
Extrusion plastic is a good medium if you want 3D printing to be a few inches tall. But when you need an object at the nanometer scale, DNA is a better choice—but who has the time to design and assemble them one base per base? These are omnipotent scientists. A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) allows people to design and shape the desired shapes using DNA—the secret of which is to determine the A, T, G, and C base pairs in DNA through a clever algorithm. s position.
It is understood that, unlike people's usual impression, the structure of DNA does not necessarily have to be double-helix: by changing the order of bases or substituting other molecules, scientists can twist the DNA strand in a specified direction. Or wrap around in a certain direction - if you have a careful design, you can even make a single strand of DNA bend and entangle enough to form a useful geometry.
Researchers say the structures can be used to deliver drugs, make packaging tools like the CRISPR Cas9 gene editing element, and even store information.
However, the biggest problem is how to design. For example, just making a DNA chain a dodecahedron is an extremely complicated task. Almost no one has the experience to manually assemble such complex molecules. These molecules are often composed of thousands. Base pair composition.
This is what scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Arizona State University, and Baylor University are trying to solve. Their results have been published in the May 25 issue of Science.
Mark Bathe from MIT said in a press release: "This paper turns the problem from the DNA needed by an expert to design a synthetic object to the object itself, which is the starting point, and then automatically defines the algorithm according to the algorithm. The DNA sequence needed."
This is a very talkative statement, but in fact, all you have to do is provide a 3D shape with a closed surface (such as a polyhedron, ring, etc.), then enter it into the computer and specify the specification range. Your work is done. It is.
After this, the algorithm created by the researchers will determine the exact order of the bases required, which provides a "scaffolding", and then a single strand of DNA will be bent and entangled around it to form the desired shape. This algorithm even has a cool name - DAEDALUS (user-defined structure of DNA origami sequence design algorithm)
Here are the fascinating DNA shapes that scientists have created using this method (these photos were taken with a 3D single-particle cryo-electron microscope):
The use of this approach in medical and genetic editing is obvious, but researchers believe that the use of the technology will greatly exceed the above areas.
For example, DNA storage has suddenly become a reality, and people can use this algorithm to create a very unique result and use it for the encoding of binary data - that is, a DNA nano-scale ROM disk, cool or cool?
(Compiled from TechCrunch)
Source: Tiangongshe
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