A DNA Nanodevice that loads and releases a cargo with hemoglobin-like allosteric control and cooperativity

摘要

Here we report the rational design of audsynthetic molecular nanodevice that is directly inspired fromudhemoglobin, a highly evolved protein whose oxygen-carryingudactivity is finely regulated by a sophisticated network of controludmechanisms. Inspired by the impressive performance ofudhemoglobin we have designed and engineered in vitro audsynthetic DNA-based nanodevice containing up to fourudinteracting binding sites that, like hemoglobin, can load andudrelease a cargo over narrow concentration ranges, and whoseudaffinity can be finely controlled via both allosteric effectorsudand environmental cues like pH and temperature. As the firstudexample of a synthetic DNA nanodevice that undergoes a complex network of nature-inspired control mechanisms, thisudrepresents an important step toward the use of similar nanodevices for diagnostic and drug-delivery applications.