Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition of Metal Oxides on DNA Nanostructures and Its Applications

A review of DNA nanoparticles-encapsulated drug/gene/protein for advanced controlled drug release: Current status and future perspective over emerging therapy approaches

In the last ten years, the field of nanomedicine has experienced significant progress in creating novel drug delivery systems (DDSs). An effective strategy involves employing DNA nanoparticles (NPs) as carriers to encapsulate drugs, genes, or proteins, facilitating regulated drug release. This abstract examines the utilization of DNA NPs and their potential applications in strategies for controlled drug release. Researchers have utilized the distinctive characteristics of DNA molecules, including their ability to self-assemble and their compatibility with living organisms, to create NPs specifically for the purpose of delivering drugs. The DNA NPs possess numerous benefits compared to conventional drug carriers, such as exceptional stability, adjustable dimensions and structure, and convenient customization. Researchers have successfully achieved a highly efficient encapsulation of different therapeutic agents by carefully designing their structure and composition. This advancement enables precise and targeted delivery of drugs. The incorporation of drugs, genes, or proteins into DNA NPs provides notable advantages in terms of augmenting therapeutic effectiveness while reducing adverse effects. DNA NPs serve as a protective barrier for the enclosed payloads, preventing their degradation and extending their duration in the body. The protective effect is especially vital for delicate biologics, such as proteins or gene-based therapies that could otherwise be vulnerable to enzymatic degradation or quick elimination. Moreover, the surface of DNA NPs can be altered to facilitate specific targeting towards particular tissues or cells, thereby augmenting the accuracy of delivery. A significant benefit of DNA NPs is their capacity to regulate the kinetics of drug release. Through the manipulation of the DNA NPs structure, scientists can regulate the rate at which the enclosed cargo is released, enabling a prolonged and regulated dispensation of medication. This control is crucial for medications with limited therapeutic ranges or those necessitating uninterrupted administration to attain optimal therapeutic results. In addition, DNA NPs have the ability to react to external factors, including alterations in temperature, pH, or light, which can initiate the release of the payload at precise locations or moments. This feature enhances the precision of drug release control. The potential uses of DNA NPs in the controlled release of medicines are extensive. The NPs have the ability to transport various therapeutic substances, for example, drugs, peptides, NAs (NAs), and proteins. They exhibit potential for the therapeutic management of diverse ailments, including cancer, genetic disorders, and infectious diseases. In addition, DNA NPs can be employed for targeted drug delivery, traversing biological barriers, and surpassing the constraints of conventional drug administration methods.

Biomolecule-Based Optical Metamaterials: Design and Applications

Metamaterials are broadly defined as artificial, electromagnetically homogeneous structures that exhibit unusual physical properties that are not present in nature. They possess extraordinary capabilities to bend electromagnetic waves. Their size, shape and composition can be engineered to modify their characteristics, such as iridescence, color shift, absorbance at different wavelengths, etc., and harness them as biosensors. Metamaterial construction from biological sources such as carbohydrates, proteins and nucleic acids represents a low-cost alternative, rendering high quantities and yields. In addition, the malleability of these biomaterials makes it possible to fabricate an endless number of structured materials such as composited nanoparticles, biofilms, nanofibers, quantum dots, and many others, with very specific, invaluable and tremendously useful optical characteristics. The intrinsic characteristics observed in biomaterials make them suitable for biomedical applications. This review addresses the optical characteristics of metamaterials obtained from the major macromolecules found in nature: carbohydrates, proteins and DNA, highlighting their biosensor field use, and pointing out their physical properties and production paths.

Advancing the Utility of DNA Origami Technique through Enhanced Stability of DNA-Origami-Based Assemblies

Since its discovery in 2006, the DNA origami technique has revolutionized bottom-up nanofabrication. This technique is simple yet versatile and enables the fabrication of nanostructures of almost arbitrary shapes. Furthermore, due to their intrinsic addressability, DNA origami structures can serve as templates for the arrangement of various nanoscale components (small molecules, proteins, nanoparticles, etc.) with controlled stoichiometry and nanometer-scale precision, which is often beyond the reach of other nanofabrication techniques. Despite the multiple benefits of the DNA origami technique, its applicability is often restricted by the limited stability in application-specific conditions. This Review provides an overview of the strategies that have been developed to improve the stability of DNA-origami-based assemblies for potential biomedical, nanofabrication, and other applications.

Fabrication of DNA-Templated Pt Nanostructures by Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition

We report the fabrication of DNA-templated Pt nanostructures by area-selective atomic layer deposition. A DNA-templated self-assembled monolayer was used to mediate the area-selective deposition of Pt. Using this approach, we demonstrated the fabrication of both single- and two-component nanostructure patterns, including Pt, TiO₂/Pt, and Al₂O₃/Pt. These nanoscale patterns were used as hard masks for plasma deep etching of Si to fabricate anti-reflection surfaces. This work demonstrated a gas-phase, DNA-templated fabrication of metal nanostructures, which complements earlier work of solution-based DNA metallization. The nanostructures obtained here are useful for applications in nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, and surface engineering.

Rapid self-assembly of γPNA nanofibers at constant temperature

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) have primarily been used to achieve therapeutic gene modulation through antisense strategies since their design in the 1990s. However, the application of PNAs as a functional nanomaterial has been more recent. We recently reported that γ-modified peptide nucleic acids (γPNAs) could be used to enable formation of complex, self-assembling nanofibers in select polar aprotic organic solvent mixtures. Here we demonstrate that distinct γPNA strands, each with a high density of γ-modifications can form complex nanostructures at constant temperatures within 30 minutes. Additionally, we demonstrate DNA-assisted isothermal growth of γPNA nanofibers, thereby overcoming a key hurdle for future scale-up of applications related to nanofiber growth and micropatterning.

Scaling Up DNA Origami Lattice Assembly

The surface-assisted hierarchical assembly of DNA origami nanostructures is a promising route to fabricate regular nanoscale lattices. In this work, the scalability of this approach is explored and the formation of a homogeneous polycrystalline DNA origami lattice at the mica-electrolyte interface over a total surface area of 18.75 cm2 is demonstrated. The topological analysis of more than 50 individual AFM images recorded at random locations over the sample surface showed only minuscule and random variations in the quality and order of the assembled lattice. The analysis of more than 450 fluorescence microscopy images of a quantum dot-decorated DNA origami lattice further revealed a very homogeneous surface coverage over cm2 areas with only minor boundary effects at the substrate edges. At total DNA costs of € 0.12 per cm2 , this large-scale nanopatterning technique holds great promise for the fabrication of functional surfaces.

Large-Scale Bio-Inspired Flexible Antireflective Film with Scale-Insensitivity Arrays

Natural creatures can always provide perfect strategies for excellent antireflection (AR), which is valuable for photovoltaic industry, optical devices, and flexible displays. However, limited by precision, it is still difficult to guarantee the consistency between the artificial structures and the original biological structures. Here, a novel large-scale flexible AR film is inspired by the cicada wings and successfully fabricated with a recycled template. On the one hand, the adjustable structures on porous templates make it possible to optimize the design of AR structure parameters toward the practical demand. On the other hand, it breaks the limitation of the biological organism size, accomplishing the replication of AR nanostructure units in a large scale. Interestingly, even if the film is covered by enlarged dome cone arrays, it still maintains almost perfect AR property, achieving excellent scale-insensitivity AR performance. This work numerically and experimentally investigates its scale-insensitivity AR performance in detail. Compared with subwavelength nanocones, enlarged cones change the original optical behaviors, and the proportion of transmitted light is reduced while scattering and absorption increase. Based on this, these bio-inspired scale-insensitivity AR arrays could be used in flexible displays, photothermic conversion, solar cells, and so on.