This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Biomolecular nanomachines, such as enzymes and molecular motors, are the workhorses behind the synthesis and organization of complex materials in life. Powered by chemical energy, they build, transport and organize biomolecules, allowing living systems to create and maintain highly ordered structures far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
In living systems, the synergy of multiple nanomachines performing sequential, energy-consuming steps is crucial for building ordered structures. Mimicking such bottom-up chemical and mechanical assembly of matter by artificial means, however, remains a challenge. Individual components have advanced in molecular robotics, including protein-based molecular motors that provide active transport to overcome diffusion limits, yet linking the work of multiple nanomachines in a stepwise process, where one hands off to the next, has proven far harder.
In particular, two goals remain unexplored: achieving energy-dissipative self-assembly through dynamic processes and replicating the multistep coordination of different enzymatic and motor functions seen in life. In a recent study, a research team led by assistant professor Shogo Hamada from the Department of Computer Science, School of Computing, Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan, and co-led by professor Akira Kakugo from Kyoto University, Japan, developed a system that dynamically forms deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) network materials through a bottom-up process driven by two types of biomolecular nanomachines: DNA polymerase and molecular motors. The international team included Dr.
Farhana Afroze (Hokkaido University, Japan), Dr. Richard Archer (Science Tokyo), and professor Tetsuya Hiraiwa (Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan). Published in the journal Small, the work marks a key step toward constructing nonequilibrium materials that mimic how living systems organize themselves.
Taking inspiration from the synergy of cooperating molecular systems in life, the team designed a two-step process for synthesizing and assembling materials from the nanoscale up. First, DNA polymerase amplified DNA templates attached to microtubules through rolling circle amplification (RCA), growing long DNA strands directly on the microtubules. Kinesin motor proteins fixed to a substrate then consumed adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to propel these DNA-carrying microtubules across the surface.
When the gliding microtubules collided, the DNA strands riding on them came into contact and connected. As the microtubules moved, they mechanically stretched and pulled the joined DNA strands, resulting in a growing network of organized, fiberlike architectures. In short, DNA polymerase generated the molecular material, and ATP-powered kinesin motors physically assembled it into interconnected structures.
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