DNA tetrahedral nanostructures for the biomedical application and spatial orientation of biomolecules

Weijun Wang; Mengling Lin; Wenqing Wang; Zhifa Shen; Zai-Sheng Wu

doi:10.1016/j.bioactmat.2023.10.025

DNA tetrahedral nanostructures for the biomedical application and spatial orientation of biomolecules

Bioact Mater. 2023 Nov 24:33:279-310. doi: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2023.10.025. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Authors

Weijun Wang^{1

2

3}, Mengling Lin², Wenqing Wang², Zhifa Shen¹, Zai-Sheng Wu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine of the Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Medicine Genetics, School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Institute of Functional Nucleic Acids and Personalized Cancer Theranostics, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325035, China.
² Cancer Metastasis Alert and Prevention Center, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Cancer Metastasis Chemoprevention and Chemotherapy, State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350108, China.
³ College of Chemistry and Food Science, Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang, 330032, China.

Abstract

DNA not only plays a vital role in nature as fundamental hereditary material for storing genetic material, but also serves as well-defined functional material, for example, building blocks for the assembly of nanoscale bio-architectures by Watson-Crick base-pairing interaction. With the development of molecular biology, biotechnology and nanoscience, structural DNA nanotechnology has achieved numerous advances, contributing to the construction of various DNA nanostructures ranging from discrete objects to one dimensional (1D), two dimensional (2D), and three dimensional (3D) architectures. Among them, DNA tetrahedral nanoarchitecture is intensively studied because of simple 3D structure, easy design and unique properties, such as high rigidity, desirable biostability and efficient cellular uptake without auxiliary species. This review summarizes the research progress in the assembly of DNA tetrahedral objects and outlines the applications in biosensing, drug delivery and targeted therapy. Moreover, the dependence of biological activity of biomolecules on DNA tetrahedron-mediated spatially-controlled arrangement and great potential applications are discussed. In addition, the challenges in the design and clinic applications of DNA tetrahedron-based platforms are described, the perspectives towards biomedical applications are foreseen, and our understandings on further studies of DNA tetrahedron are provided, aiming to motivate the development of DNA nanotechnology and interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: Biomarker detection; DNA nanotechnology; DNA tetrahedron; Drug delivery; Oriented arrangement; cancer treatment.

Publication types

Review