All the creatures on Earth are made of cells. The exterior and the interior of the cell are compartmentalized by biomembranes. A nanodevice that is able to actively transport only the specific oligonucleotide through the biomembrane has a great potential to deliver siRNA into the cell or to extract mRNA expressed in the cell. Here, we decided to create a novel device with such a function. We have designed a cylindrical injector/extractor device made of DNA origami (we named this device: CELL-GATE). Inside the cylinder, a cascade of single stranded DNAs (ssDNA) is planted. Once the outer-most ssDNA binds to a target oligonucleotide, the target is passed to the inner-ones one by one because of the higher bonding energy assigned to the inner ones. We also investigate how the cylinder penetrates the biomembrane by using liposome as a model membrane.
We divided CELL-GATE into three sub-projects with the following functions: (Please click to see more details)
PORTER: Cascade of ssDNA capable of capturing & transporting a target DNA
GATE: Nanostructural channel made of DNA origami that includes PORTER inside. GATE is inserted in the cell membrane
MEMBRANE: We use liposome as model for the cell membrane.