Remote electronic control of DNA hybridization through inductive coupling to an attached metal nanocrystal antenna
Remote electronic control of DNA hybridization through inductive coupling to an attached metal nanocrystal antenna
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DOI：
10.1038/415152a
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发表时间：
2002-01-10
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Jacobson, JM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hamad-Schifferli, K;Schwartz, JJ;Jacobson, JM
越来越详细的结构（1）和动态（2,3）研究凸显了生物分子在分子尺度上执行复杂任务的精确性。这些过程的效率和多功能性激发了许多模仿或利用它们的尝试。迄今为止，生物分子已被用于执行计算操作(4) 和驱动(5)，构建行为类似于简单电路元件(6,7) 的人工转录环，并指导纳米晶体的组装(8)。这些方法的进一步发展需要用于生物系统物理和化学操作的新工具。生物分子活动已通过使用发色团 (9-14) 以光学方式触发，但以特定且完全可逆的方式对生物分子“机器”进行直接电子控制尚未实现。在这里，我们通过将射频磁场感应耦合到与 DNA 共价连接的金属纳米晶体来演示对 DNA 分子杂交行为的远程电子控制 (15)。与纳米晶体的感应耦合增加了结合 DNA 的局部温度，从而诱导变性，同时使周围的分子相对不受影响。此外，由于溶解的生物分子在不到 50 皮秒的时间内散热（参考文献 16），因此这种切换是完全可逆的。宏观样品的感应加热被广泛使用(17-19)，但目前的方法应该允许将该概念扩展到杂交的控制，从而在分子尺度上控制广泛的生物功能。
Increasingly detailed structural(1) and dynamic(2,3) studies are highlighting the precision with which biomolecules execute often complex tasks at the molecular scale. The efficiency and versatility of these processes have inspired many attempts to mimic or harness them. To date, biomolecules have been used to perform computational operations(4) and actuation(5), to construct artificial transcriptional loops that behave like simple circuit elements(6,7) and to direct the assembly of nanocrystals(8). Further development of these approaches requires new tools for the physical and chemical manipulation of biological systems. Biomolecular activity has been triggered optically through the use of chromophores(9-14), but direct electronic control over biomolecular 'machinery' in a specific and fully reversible manner has not yet been achieved. Here we demonstrate remote electronic control over the hybridization behaviour of DNA molecules, by inductive coupling of a radio-frequency magnetic field to a metal nanocrystal covalently linked to DNA(15). Inductive coupling to the nanocrystal increases the local temperature of the bound DNA, thereby inducing denaturation while leaving surrounding molecules relatively unaffected. Moreover, because dissolved biomolecules dissipate heat in less than 50 picoseconds (ref. 16), the switching is fully reversible. Inductive heating of macroscopic samples is widely used(17-19), but the present approach should allow extension of this concept to the control of hybridization and thus of a broad range of biological functions on the molecular scale.