The team led by Professors Qiang He and Yingjie Wu, from the school of life science and medicine Harbin Institute of Technology, has made important research progress in the field of bioinspired swimming nano-robots. The research results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society entitled Rotary FoF1-ATP Synthase-Driven Flasklike Pentosan Colloidal Motors with ATP Synthesis and Storage. This study uses the nanoscale rotary biological molecular motor ATP synthase as the power component, successfully realizing that sub-micrometer-scaled bioinspired swimming nanorobots perform the bioenergy currency ATP synthesis, storage and directional transport, which has broad application prospects in the field of active targeted energy metabolism regulation therapy and other biomedical fields.
In biological systems, directional migration and the supply of the bioenergy currency ATP are crucial for many physiological and pathological processes. Scientists have developed various enzyme-driven swimming nanorobots with positively or negatively chemotactic abilities to perform various biomedical tasks. However, swimming nanorobots powered by natural biological enzymes are sensitive to the surrounding ionic environment, and there are practical problems in achieving efficient actuation under physiological conditions. As the smallest rotary biological molecular motor in nature, FoF1-ATP synthase has the advantages of high efficiency and safety in energy conversion, and operates well under physiological conditions. Therefore, developing a bioinspired swimming nanorobot based on FoF1-ATP synthase as the power unit, improving its self-propulsion performance and biomedical application functions under physiological conditions, will provide an important theoretical basis for swimming nanorobots to perform precise diagnostic and therapeutic tasks.
The research team used FoF1-ATP synthase as the power unit and successfully prepared a streamlined, sub-micrometer flasklike swimming nanorobot. Experimental data analysis and theoretical simulation show that based on the advantages and functions of FoF1-ATP synthase, external protons diffuse radially through the bottle cavity and synergistically drive the phosphorylation reaction of FoF1-ATP synthase, which can use the widely existing ADP and inorganic phosphate (Pi) in the biological body to synthesize the bioenergy ATP, realizing biologically safe energy conversion and autonomous mobility, while exhibiting a relatively high ATP synthesis and storage capacity. In an external proton gradient environment, the swimming nanorobot exhibits a clear negatively chemotactic behavior, i.e., it migrates directionally along the proton gradient towards the direction away from the proton source. Furthermore, when the external medium contains chemical signals that induce ATP release, the swimming nanorobot can release the stored ATP as needed. This swimming nano-robot that integrates the functions of ATP synthesis, storage and targeted delivery provides a new approach for the precise treatment of diseases related to ATP imbalance.
Paper Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.4c00334
