| Jul 01, 2024 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed nanorobots that kill most cancers cells in mice. The robotic’s weapon is hidden in a nanostructure and is uncovered solely within the tumour microenvironment, sparing wholesome cells.
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The examine is revealed within the journal Nature Nanotechnology (“A DNA Robotic Switch with Regulated Autonomous Display of Cytotoxic Ligand Nanopatterns”).
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The analysis group at Karolinska Institutet has beforehand developed constructions that may organise so-called demise receptors on the floor of cells, resulting in cell demise. The constructions exhibit six peptides (amino acid chains) assembled in a hexagonal sample.
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“This hexagonal nanopattern of peptides becomes a lethal weapon,” explains Professor Björn Högberg on the Division of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, who led the examine. “If you were to administer it as a drug, it would indiscriminately start killing cells in the body, which would not be good. To get around this problem, we have hidden the weapon inside a nanostructure built from DNA.”
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| The nanorobot’s weapon can solely be uncovered within the acidic atmosphere present in and round a strong tumour. (Illustration: Boxuan Shen)
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Created a ‘kill switch’
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The artwork of constructing nanoscale constructions utilizing DNA as a constructing materials known as DNA origami and is one thing Björn Högberg’s analysis workforce has been engaged on for a few years. Now they’ve used the approach to create a ‘kill switch’ that’s activated underneath the proper circumstances.
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“We have managed to hide the weapon in such a way that it can only be exposed in the environment found in and around a solid tumour,” he says. “This means that we have created a type of nanorobot that can specifically target and kill cancer cells.”
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The secret is the low pH, or acidic microenvironment that often surrounds most cancers cells, which prompts the nanorobot’s weapon. In cell analyses in check tubes, the researchers have been capable of present that the peptide weapon is hidden contained in the nanostructure at a traditional pH of seven.4, however that it has a drastic cell-killing impact when the pH drops to six.5.
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Decreased tumour development
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They then examined injecting the nanorobot into mice with breast most cancers tumours. This resulted in a 70 per cent discount in tumour development in comparison with mice given an inactive model of the nanorobot.
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“We now need to investigate whether this works in more advanced cancer models that more closely resemble the real human disease,” says the examine’s first creator Yang Wang, a researcher on the Division of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet. “We also need to find out what side effects the method has before it can be tested on humans.”
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The researchers additionally plan to research whether or not it’s potential to make the nanorobot extra focused by putting proteins or peptides on its floor that particularly bind to sure sorts of most cancers.
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