Biotechnology articles within Nature Nanotechnology

Featured

  • News & Views |

    A biohybrid nanoparticle formulation effectively treats rheumatoid arthritis by concurrently providing symptom relief and restoring proper immune function.

    • Ronnie H. Fang
    •  & Liangfang Zhang

  • Article |

    Nanoindentation of the microscale honeybee comb reveals a stiffness gradient that spans two orders of magnitude, which amplifies the catapult effect and facilitates solid particle repellency. By leveraging this, the study presents the fabrication of scaled-up, bioinspired stiffness-gradient elastomeric catapult-like soft actuators.

    • Wei Zhang
    • , Wei Jiang
    •  & Zuankai Wang

  • News & Views |

    In a major advancement for synthetic biology, dynamin A has been identified as a minimal component enabling cell division in synthetic cells, moving us one step nearer to realizing the ambition of creating synthetic life forms.

    • Oskar Staufer

  • Article |

    Bacterial protein dynamin A is shown to self-assemble at the membrane neck of dumbbell-shaped liposomes, triggering membrane hemi-scission and full scission, establishing dynamin-based single protein as a minimal synthetic divisome for synthetic cells.

    • Nicola De Franceschi
    • , Roman Barth
    •  & Cees Dekker

  • Article |

    A reagentless, wireless, wearable aptamer nanobiosensor interfaced with a gold nanoparticle-MXene-based electrode enables the selective, automatic and non-invasive analysis of the female hormone oestradiol in sweat during menstrual cycles with subpicomolar sensitivity.

    • Cui Ye
    • , Minqiang Wang
    •  & Wei Gao

  • News & Views |

    Nanopore sequencing combined with DNA-barcoded probes enables multiplexed detection of diverse biomarkers in blood serum.

    • Ashley Stephenson
    •  & Jeff Nivala

  • Article |

    Biosynthesis of magnetosomes is of interest for a range of applications. Here, factors needed for magnetosome biosynthesis are evaluated and new diverse bacteria are engineered to biofabricate magnetic nanoparticles, facilitating translation to biotechnology and nanomedicine.

    • Marina V. Dziuba
    • , Frank-Dietrich Müller
    •  & Dirk Schüler

  • Article |

    Nanoparticle penetration into tumours is an obstacle to cancer therapeutics. Here the authors show that the tumour vascular basement membrane constitutes a barrier that reduces nanoparticle delivery and demonstrate an immune-driven strategy to overcome the barrier, increasing nanoparticle movement into tumours.

    • Qin Wang
    • , Qirui Liang
    •  & Yucai Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum biological electron transfer has potential in diagnostic and therapeutic settings. Here the authors report the triggered apoptosis of cancer cells using electricical input to wirelessly induce redox interactions at bio-nanoantennae in proximity to cancer cells.

    • Akhil Jain
    • , Jonathan Gosling
    •  & Frankie J. Rawson

  • Comment |

    Reducing cancer-related deaths can only happen with a better understanding of cancer biology and the development of improved, new therapeutics and delivery mechanisms. Nearly all cancer research is dependent upon the models being used, the model’s accuracy, and appropriate validation and benchmarking. Here the need for such considerations is discussed in line with the goal of the Cancer Moonshot.

    • Peter C. Searson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A synthetic nanocarrier based on DNA origami chassis offers control over valency, orientation and spatial arrangement of antibodies for simultaneously engaging immune signalling pathways, checkpoint inhibition and targeted co-stimulation in anticancer immunotherapy in vivo.

    • Klaus F. Wagenbauer
    • , Nhi Pham
    •  & Hendrik Dietz

  • News & Views |

    DNA-origami nanostructures self-assembled at milder physicochemical parameters in magnesium-free conditions achieve structural complexities akin to those formed by thermal annealing at elevated temperatures, and open a route to assembling DNA nanomachines in physiological conditions.

    • Elisa Franco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA nanotechnology is used to develop fully synthetic, programmable and printable 3D cell-culture matrices with stress-relaxation crosslinkers that encode (nano)mechanical stability. The hydrogel performs on par with solubilized animal-basement-membrane-derived cell-culture matrices.

    • Yu-Hsuan Peng
    • , Syuan-Ku Hsiao
    •  & Elisha Krieg

  • News & Views |

    Cholesterol levels in biological fluids are shown to change the composition of the protein corona affecting the biological fate of nanoparticles.

    • Negar Mahmoudi
    •  & Morteza Mahmoudi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electro-osmosis in an anion-selective α-hemolysin nanopore is used to capture, unfold and transport polypeptides of over 1,200 residues, which allows the mapping of post-translational modifications in polypeptide chains by monitoring the ionic current at a single-molecule resolution.

    • Pablo Martin-Baniandres
    • , Wei-Hsuan Lan
    •  & Hagan Bayley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA and RNA origami nanostructures direct the size, shape and topology of different virus capsids in a user-defined manner while shielding encapsulated origamis from degradation.

    • Iris Seitz
    • , Sharon Saarinen
    •  & Mauri A. Kostiainen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Crossing the blood–brain barrier in primates is a major obstacle to gene delivery in the brain. Here an adeno-associated virus variant (AAV.CAP-Mac) is identified and demonstrated for crossing the blood–brain barrier and delivering gene sequences to the brain of different non-human primates species.

    • Miguel R. Chuapoco
    • , Nicholas C. Flytzanis
    •  & Viviana Gradinaru

  • Article |

    Intercellular calcium waves drive numerous biological processes. Here light-activated molecular machines that—via nanomechanical action—stimulate ICW are reported, opening up avenues for the modulation of downstream biological processes using molecular-scale devices.

    • Jacob L. Beckham
    • , Alexis R. van Venrooy
    •  & James M. Tour

  • Article |

    PEGylated liposomal accumulation in inflamed regions has mainly been attributed to the enhanced permeation and retention effect. An arthritis model that chemotactically attracted myeloid cells shows that monocytes and neutrophils play an essential role in liposome delivery towards inflamed joints.

    • Joke Deprez
    • , Rein Verbeke
    •  & Ine Lentacker

  • Research Briefing |

    Certain proteins have been optimized over millennia to exhibit shock-absorbing capabilities. To harness these capabilities, synthetic biology was used to incorporate the mechanosensitive protein talin into a hydrogel. The resulting talin shock-absorbing material (TSAM) retains the mechanical properties of talin and can absorb the impact of, as well as capture, supersonic projectiles.

  • Article |

    In single-molecule characterization, the near-infinite re-read capability on the same region of interest has the potential to unlock greater sensing capacity. A nanopore-based method, named scanning ion conductance spectroscopy, provides complete control over the translocation speed and nanopore position along a selected region and can detect a single 3 Å gap in a long strand of DNA.

    • S. M. Leitao
    • , V. Navikas
    •  & A. Radenovic

  • News & Views |

    Discovery of a novel axis through which multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) elicit toxicity in human macrophages, involving the propagation of inflammatory signalling via the Siglec-14-DAP12-Syk pathway, and how it may be controlled pharmacologically.

    • Michelle K. Greene
    •  & Christopher J. Scott

  • Article |

    Creation of cell spheroids by using triggered d-peptide self-assembly is reported. Peptides are dephosphorylated by transcytosis in cells and intercellularly assembled to facilitate fibronectin fibrillogenesis and subsequent spheroid formation.

    • Jiaqi Guo
    • , Fengbin Wang
    •  & Bing Xu

  • Comment |

    Increasing the capacity of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is an effective strategy to enhance food security while simultaneously reducing the carbon and nitrogen footprint of agriculture. Nanotechnology offers several pathways to enhance BNF successfully.

    • Mingshu Li
    • , Li Gao
    •  & Peng Zhang

  • Analysis
    | Open Access

    While engineered nanomaterials are relatively new, organisms have been exposed to natural nanoparticles over vast periods of time. Here the authors explore the possibility that common mechanisms of response to nanomaterials may have resulted from a long evolutionary exposure history to natural nano-sized matter.

    • G. del Giudice
    • , A. Serra
    •  & D. Greco

  • Comment |

    Nanomedicines are complex drugs where components that have typically been regarded as excipients may now be considered part of the active ingredient. The distinction between the active ingredient and excipients for nanomedicines has important consequences for regulatory review and product development. The dissimilarity in the review of the recent ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based lipid nanoparticles highlights the need for further regulatory alignment on this topic.

    • Eva Hemmrich
    •  & Scott McNeil

  • Article |

    Optimizing the retention of drug delivery nanocarriers for improved cancer therapy has the potential to improve clinical outcomes. Here the authors screen 20 renal-clearable zwitterionic cyclodextrin-based nanocarriers for optimized biodistribution and tumour retention, demonstrating application in colorectal cancer models.

    • Min-Jun Baek
    • , Duy-Thuc Nguyen
    •  & Dae-Duk Kim

  • Article |

    Wearable resistive sensors for biometrics and machine interfacing are often non-specific. Here the authors report on the creation of hierarchically resistive skins for monitoring physical or physiological activities around the throat which, with the use of neural networking, can be used to distinguish different activities.

    • Shu Gong
    • , Xin Zhang
    •  & Wenlong Cheng

  • News & Views |

    Single blood vessel analysis by artificial intelligence (AI) reveals heterogeneous vascular permeability among different tumour types, which is leveraged in rationally designing protein nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems to achieve active trans-endothelial permeability in tumours.

    • Lutz Nuhn

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