Abstract
Machines found in nature and human-made machines share common components, such as an engine, and an output element, such as a rotor, linked by a clutch. This clutch, as seen in biological structures such as dynein, myosin or bacterial flagellar motors, allows for temporary disengagement of the moving parts from the running engine. However, such sophistication is still challenging to achieve in artificial nanomachines. Here we present a spherical rotary nanomotor with a reversible clutch system based on precise molecular recognition of built-in DNA strands. The clutch couples and decouples the engine from the machine’s rotor in response to encoded inputs such as DNA or RNA. The nanomotor comprises a porous nanocage as a spherical rotor to confine the magnetic engine particle within the nanospace (∼0.004 μm3) of the cage. Thus, the entropically driven irreversible disintegration of the magnetic engine and the spherical rotor during the disengagement process is eliminated, and an exchange of microenvironmental inputs is possible through the nanopores. Our motor is only 200 nm in size and the clutch-mediated force transmission powered by an embedded ferromagnetic nanocrystal is high enough (∼15.5 pN at 50 mT) for the in vitro mechanical activation of Notch and integrin receptors, demonstrating its potential as nano-bio machinery.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. The unprocessed raw data are available from the authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Institute for Basic Science IBS-R026-D1 (J.C.) and IBS-R026-Y1 (D.L). We thank D. H. Son (Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University) for helpful discussions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
J.C. conceived the project. J.C. and D.L. supervised the project. M.L. designed and synthesized the nanomotor. Y.K. synthesized DNA origami. J.-u.L., G.K., M.P. and J.D.L. synthesized the magnetic nanoparticles. S.L. performed HAADF-STEM. D.L., J.P. and M.L. performed liquid-phase TEM and D.L. analysed the data. M.K. and Y.J. designed the TIRF experiment. M.L. performed TIRF measurements and analysed data. J.-u.L., A.J. and K.N. designed and conducted the cell experiments. J.-H.L. and M.K. contributed to the project discussion. M.L., D.L. and J.C. wrote the manuscript. All authors edited and commented on the manuscript.
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Nature Nanotechnology thanks Donglei Fan and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Correlation between total electron dose and average velocity of the core particle.
The electron flux is 4.8 × 106 e− nm−2 s−1.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Experimental set-up for TIRF microscopy with magnetic actuation.
a, Schemes and images of the flow chamber and the magnetic actuation system used in the TIRF measurement. b, Fluorescence image of the supported lipid bilayer (SLB) containing 1 mol% NBD-PC lipids after photobleaching by a 488-nm laser. c, Fluorescence image of the SLB after 5 min of recovery. d, Fluorescence recovery plot as a function of time, showing the large area lipid bilayer formation on the glass slide and the high fluidity of the SLB.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Design of the DNA origami rotor blade.
Strand diagram of the origami rotor blade with inset showing two tips (black squares) and the cross-section of honeycomb lattice (orange circle).
Extended Data Fig. 4 TIRF microscopy image sequence.
Montage of 574 individual frames corresponding to the single particle trajectory in Fig. 4e, shows the continuous response of the structure to the programmed CCW (row 1–4), CW (row 9-12), and CCW (row 17–20) rotations of the programmed rotary magnetic fields. Recorded at an interval of 0.1 s.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Operation of the nanomotors under rotary magnetic fields.
Histograms showing the velocity of the optical reporter attached to the far tip of the DNA origami rotor blade under rotary magnetic fields with a, idle mode and b, force transmission mode. c, Scatter plot of absolute angular speed at different rotating frequencies of the external magnetic fields. Black dots mark the mean for each case with a linear fit.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary video captions 1–11, materials and methods, Notes 1–6, Figs.1–4 and Tables 1–3.
Supplementary Video 1
A representative video of the liquid phase TEM observation of the nanomotor structures at high magnification with high temporal resolution (TR = 3.48 ms) showing the nanospace core particle dynamics, corresponding to Fig. 3a-b. Recorded under 80 kV with a K3-IS Camera (Gatan). Total frame number: 200. Display speed: 10 fps. Real video time: 0.7 s.
Supplementary Video 2
A representative video of the liquid phase TEM observation of nanomotor structures at low magnification showing the simultaneous behaviour of many particles. Recorded under 80 kV with a OneView Camera (Gatan), TR = 40 ms. Total frame number: 139. Display speed: 10 fps. Real video time: 5.5 s.
Supplementary Video 3
A representative video of the liquid phase TEM observation of the nanomotor structures (TR = 40 ms) showing the engagement of the core with the cage upon increasing the salt concentration from DIW to 0.15 M NaCl, corresponding to Fig. 3e. Recorded under 80 kV with a OneView-IS Camera (Gatan). Total frame number: 840. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 33.5 s.
Supplementary Video 4
A representative video of the liquid phase TEM observation of nanomotor structures at low magnification showing the engagement of the clutch for multiple particles upon increasing the salt concentration to 0.15 M NaCl. Recorded under 200 kV with a OneView Camera (Gatan). Total frame number: 772. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 15.5 s.
Supplementary Video 5
A representative video of the liquid phase TEM observation of the nanomotor structures (TR = 26 ms) showing the disengagement of the core with the cage upon decreasing the salt concentration from 0.15 M NaCl to DIW, corresponding to Fig. 3f. Recorded under 80 kV with a K3-IS Camera (Gatan). Total frame number: 300. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 7.8 s.
Supplementary Video 6
A representative TIRF video showing the trajectory of a single freely moving optical reporter (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) on the two-dimensional supported lipid bilayer, corresponding to Supplementary Note 3. Total frame number: 60. Display speed: 10 fps. Real video time: 10 s.
Supplementary Video 7
A representative TIRF video showing the trajectory of the optical reporter (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) attached to the far tip of the origami rotor blade on the nanomachine under rotary magnetic fields (0.25 Hz), corresponding to Fig. 4e. Total frame number: 574. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 59.6 s.
Supplementary Video 8
A representative TIRF video showing the trajectories of optical reporters (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) attached to the far tip of the origami rotor blades on five individual nanomachines under rotary magnetic fields (0.5 Hz). Total frame number: 514. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 51.3 s.
Supplementary Video 9
A representative TIRF video showing the trajectory of the optical reporter (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) attached to the far tip of the origami rotor blade on the nanomachine under rotary magnetic fields (1.0 Hz), corresponding to Fig. 4f (engaged). Total frame number: 552. Display speed: 10 fps. Real video time: 51.1 s.
Supplementary Video 10
A representative TIRF video showing no rotational motion of the optical reporter (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) attached to the far tip of the origami rotor blade on the disengaged nanomachine under rotary magnetic fields (1.0 Hz), corresponding to Fig. 4f (disengaged). Total frame number: 530. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 50.5 s.
Supplementary Video 11
A representative TIRF video showing the trajectory of two optical reporters (excitation 660 nm/ emission 680 nm) attached to the far tip of the origami rotor blade and on the cage of the nanomachine under rotary magnetic fields (0.25 Hz), corresponding to Supplementary Note 4. Total frame number: 390. Display speed: 25 fps. Real video time: 50.6 s.
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Lin, M., Lee, Ju., Kim, Y. et al. A magnetically powered nanomachine with a DNA clutch. Nat. Nanotechnol. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01599-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01599-6
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