Translation of DNA molecules based on optical control of DNA reactions for photonic DNA computing

摘要

We are studying on photonic DNA computing, in which the nature of light and DNA is effectively utilized, as a new computing technique. In the scheme, computation is performed by manipulating DNA with chemical reactions at nano-scale and control of light at micro-scale. As a fundamental operation, translation of DNA molecules from a position to another one is important. This paper describes some experimental results on translation of DNA molecules. A DNA cluster is fabricated by making hybridization of anti-tag DNA and data DNA that is complementary to the anti-tag DNA. The translation method consists of three steps; (i) attaching data DNA to beads (fabricating DNA clusters), (ii) translation of DNA clusters, and (iii) detaching the data DNA from the beads. We confirmed that VCSEL array optical manipulation is applicable to step (ii). For steps (i) and (iii), hairpin DNA is used to achieve two stable states of DNA. The experimental results demonstrated that attaching data DNA to a bead and detaching the DNA from the bead is possible by laser irradiation with an appropriated irradiation schedule. These results show effectiveness of the optical technique for controlling DNA molecules locally.