folding-characterization-bio-responsive-robot-from-dna

Folding and Characterization of a Bio-responsive Robot from DNA Origami

The DNA nanorobot is a hollow hexagonal nanometric device, designed to open in response to specific stimuli and present cargo sequestered inside. Both ...

Libraries and Information System of Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan University

Int6 is a proto-oncogene implicated in various types of cancer, but the mechanisms underlying its activity are not clear. Int6 encodes a subunit of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3, and interacts with two related complexes, the proteasome, whose activity is regulated by Int6 in S. pombe, and the COP9 signalosome. The COP9 signalosome regulates the activity of Cullin-Ring Ubiquitin Ligases via deneddylation of their cullin subunit. We report here the generation and analysis of two Drosophila mutants in Int6. The mutants are lethal demonstrating that Int6 is an essential gene. The mutant larvae accumulate high levels of non-neddylated Cul1, suggesting that Int6 is a positive regulator of cullin neddylation. Overexpression in Int6 in cell culture leads to accumulation of neddylated cullins, further supporting a positive role for Int6 in regulating neddylation. Thus Int6 and the COP9 signalosome play opposing roles in regulation of cullin neddylation.

The proto-oncogene Int6 is essential for neddylation of Cul1 and Cul3 in Drosophila.

Inhibiting the aggregation process of the β-amyloid peptide is a promising strategy in treating Alzheimer's disease. In this work, we have collected a dataset of 80 small molecules with known inhibition levels and utilized them to develop two comprehensive quantitative structure-activity relationship models: a Bayesian model and a decision tree model. These models have exhibited high predictive accuracy: 87% of the training and test sets using the Bayesian model and 89 and 93% of the training and test sets, respectively, by the decision tree model. Subsequently these models were used to predict the activities of several new potential β-amyloid aggregation inhibitors and these predictions were indeed validated by in vitro experiments. Key chemical features correlated with the inhibition ability were identified. These include the electro-topological state of carbonyl groups, AlogP and the number of hydrogen bond donor groups. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the developed models as tools for rapid screening, which could help in the design of novel potential drug candidates for Alzheimer's disease.

Quantitative structure-activity relationship analysis of β-amyloid aggregation inhibitors.

Molecular and chemical chaperones are key components of the two main mechanisms that ensure structural stability and activity under environmental stresses. Yet, chemical chaperones are often regarded only as osmolytes and their role beyond osmotic regulation is not fully understood. Here, we systematically studied a large group of chemical chaperones, representatives of diverse chemical families, for their protective influence under either thermal or chemical stresses. Consistent with previous studies, we observed that in spite of the structural similarity between sugars and sugar alcohols, they have an apparent difference in their protective potential. Our results support the notion that the protective activity is mediated by the solvent and the presence of water is essential. In the current work we revealed that i) polyols and sugars have a completely different profile of protective activity toward trifluoroethanol and thermal stress; ii) minor changes in solvent composition that do not affect enzyme activity, yet have a great effect on the ability of osmolytes to act as protectants and iii) increasing the number of active groups of carbohydrates makes them better protectants while increasing the number of active groups of methylamines does not, as revealed by attempts to synthesize de novo designed methylamines with multiple functional groups.

The influence of chemical chaperones on enzymatic activity under thermal and chemical stresses: common features and variation among diverse chemical families.

Biological systems are collections of discrete molecular objects that move around and collide with each other. Cells carry out elaborate processes by precisely controlling these collisions, but developing artificial machines that can interface with and control such interactions remains a significant challenge. DNA is a natural substrate for computing and has been used to implement a diverse set of mathematical problems, logic circuits and robotics. The molecule also interfaces naturally with living systems, and different forms of DNA-based biocomputing have already been demonstrated. Here, we show that DNA origami can be used to fabricate nanoscale robots that are capable of dynamically interacting with each other in a living animal. The interactions generate logical outputs, which are relayed to switch molecular payloads on or off. As a proof of principle, we use the system to create architectures that emulate various logic gates (AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOT, CNOT and a half adder). Following an ex vivo prototyping phase, we successfully used the DNA origami robots in living cockroaches (Blaberus discoidalis) to control a molecule that targets their cells.

Yaniv Amir

Faculty of Life Sciences and the Institute for Nanotechnology & Advanced Materials

Libraries and Information System of Bar-Ilan University

Folding and Characterization of a Bio-responsive Robot from DNA Origami