Slingshot to shoot drugs onto the site of an infection
The molecular slingshot is only a few nanometres long and is composed of a synthetic DNA strand that can load a drug and then effectively act as the rubber band of the slingshot. The two ends of this DNA "rubber band" contain two anchoring moieties that can specifically stick to a target antibody, a Y-shaped protein expressed by the body in response to different pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. When the anchoring moieties of the slingshot recognize and bind to the arms of the target antibody the DNA "rubber band" is stretched and the loaded drug is released. "One impressive feature about this molecular slingshot," says Francesco Ricci, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, "is that it can only be triggered by the specific antibody recognizing the anchoring tags of the DNA 'rubber band'. By simply changing these tags, one can thus program the slingshot to release a drug in response to a variety of sp...