Biomod/2012/UT/Nanowranglers
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Concept
Motion is a necessary component of life. While this does include the motion of animals and people as they move about, there is also crucial motion which takes place on a cellular level. Cells could not function with the proteins kinesin and myosin [Cite Mehta et al., 1999], which carry cargo to and from our organelles. The movements employed by these proteins are very similar to the way people walk, in the fact that they have two “feet” which step forward, one at a time [Cite Vale et al., 1996]. Because of the crucial role these proteins play in supporting life, we began to wonder if we could create our own molecular walker that could perform similar tasks. In order for this walker to be comparable to, or even better than, kinesin, it must be autonomous and run on a reusable track. In other words, it should not require an external driver and should not damage the track while taking each step. Other walkers have been created in the past, but none has yet been able to accomplish both of these tasks. There are, however, some that are at least capable of either walking autonomously [Cite Bath et al., 2005] or reusing their track [Cite Yurke et al., 2000], even though they cannot do both. Our walker is able to accomplish both tasks by means of two alterations. The use of two discrete fuel strands which can only interact with the walker system in a specific order allow us to add an excess of fuel without causing the walker to fall off the track. We also make use of a nicking enzyme which restores the track to its original form without harming it, allowing it to be reused.
These genes were made for walkin'...
Acknowledgements
We are sponsored by Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT, Coralville, IA, USA). We received travel support from the College of Natural Sciences, the University of Texas at Austin.
Background photo taken by Linhao Zhang in Fort Davis, Texas. Used with permission.
