UCLA biophysicists have developed a new method to rapidly and simultaneously measure the components in mixtures.
Mimicking Nature’s Nano-Engines
A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has successfully built a molecular motor that can be operated by heating and cooling. It shows, crucially, that until now, scientists had seen so-called rotor proteins working on a scale the size of primitive bacteria (the archaea), but none smaller.
The cross-section of the researchers have designed to sphere, an express for few molecules and pushed objects to combat voluntary a little wound, special. But that’s an imitation of the process archaea use to rotate their petite flagella-like locomotion flanges and move, supported by the energy-generating chemical fuel ATP.
This advance provides new opportunities for medical nanorobots swimming in blood vessels to lower the concentration threshold of any biocompatible magnetic material: so that an accidental overdose can be detoxified and so that they would potentially detect disease-specific abnormal proteins in blood such are cancer cells.
The Mechanics of Micro-Rotors
The peptide ribbons created by the researchers are only several micrometres in length and a few nanometers in width. Add a chemical fuel, and the ribbons stiffen into tubular shapes that curl to start spinning themselves. What they found was that, simply by varying the amount of fuel added, they can change the rotation speed of the ribbons.
In addition, the molecular building blocks of the ribbons can control which way they rotate — clockwise or anti-clockwise. This type of control is essential for potential applications since it serves to program the movement and behaviour of these microscale motors.
Together with Professor Matthias Rief, an expert in molecular biophysics, the team could measure the force exerted by these rotating ribbons on their surroundings. This is important because one of the factors that will determine how well these micro-motors can be put into use in everyday applications is to understand exactly how much force they are delivering.
For example, assembling a handful of spinning ribbons in the middle can result in ‘micro-walkers’ that slide across surfaces. Micro-walkers of this kind might therefore be employed in drug delivery inside the human body in future, once the fuel employed is adapted for use with biological systems.
Conclusion
Feeling at the supramolecular level, the creation of this miniature synthetic motor capable of converting chemical energy into rotation should be appreciated exceedingly. Not only does it emulate the mechanisms seen in ancient bacteria, but this new method could also make some exciting strides for next-generation nanorobotic applications related to medical diagnostics and drug delivery. This is certainly a very cool thing and as the researchers continue to tweak and develop this technology you can likely expect more fun and interesting stuff in the future of synthetic biology and nano-scale engineering.
