Credit: KETTERER ET AL./DIETZ LAB/TUM

Researchers have made a nanometre-scale rotor out of 3D fragments of DNA.

Hendrik Dietz and his colleagues at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, designed the fragments to self-assemble into a rotor that looks like a helicopter blade (pictured). It spins around on an axle and is clamped in place by two other DNA units. To stop the blade from rotating freely, the team used docking sites on the inside of the clamp units so that the rotor was held in place. When the ion concentration of the solution containing the rotor changed, the rotor was released and could spin owing to Brownian motion.

The researchers say this action mimics that of an enzyme in the body that acts like a rotary machine, and claim that their nanomachine is more structurally complex than previous ones.

Sci. Adv. 2, e1501209 (2016)