DNA Transformations for Diagnosis and Therapy

Abstract

Due to its unique physical and chemical characteristics, DNA, which is known only as genetic information, has been identified and utilized as a new material at an astonishing rate. The role of DNA has increased dramatically with the advent of various DNA derivatives such as DNA–RNA, DNA–metal hybrids, and PNA, which can be organized into 2D or 3D structures by exploiting their complementary recognition. Due to its intrinsic biocompatibility, self‐assembly, tunable immunogenicity, structural programmability, long stability, and electron‐rich nature, DNA has generated major interest in electronic and catalytic applications. Based on its advantages, DNA and its derivatives are utilized in several fields where the traditional methodologies are ineffective. Here, the present challenges and opportunities of DNA transformations are demonstrated, especially in biomedical applications that include diagnosis and therapy. Natural DNAs previously utilized and transformed into patterns are not found in nature due to lack of multiplexing, resulting in low sensitivity and high error frequency in multi‐targeted therapeutics. More recently, new platforms have advanced the diagnostic ability and therapeutic efficacy of DNA in biomedicine. There is confidence that DNA will play a strong role in next‐generation clinical technology and can be used in multifaceted applications.

Application Perspectives of Nanomedicine in Cancer Treatment

“…The existing DNA self-assembly techniques include DNA Tile self-assembly, rolling circle amplification (RCA), DNA origami, and DNA single-stranded tile self-assembly ( Lau and Sleiman, 2016 ; Mohsen and Kool, 2016 ; Evans and Winfree, 2017 ; Ji et al, 2021 ). In physiological environment, self-assembled DNA NPs can resist degradation to a certain extent and show stronger stability than natural single-stranded or double-stranded DNA, which has high clinical application value ( Ahn et al, 2020 ; Ramezani and Dietz, 2020 ).…”

A programmable catalytic molecular nanomachine for highly sensitive protein and small molecule detection

“…Designing and developing a synthetic molecular machine that can respond to a certain recognition element is a long-standing goal of nanotechnology. Owing to its programmable and highly predictable base-pairings, DNA has become a universal scaffold for constructing a variety of nanodevices with extensive applications, including drug release, 1,2 signal transduction, 3,4 and sensing, 5,6 in response to specific molecular inputs. For example, researchers have explored the programmable assembly of DNA nanowires, nanogels, and tetrahedra for analyte sensing and imaging.…”

DNA-embedding Schiff base molecule assemblies: an efficient biological detection approach based on clustering-triggered emission

“…[4][5][6][7] Owing to their biocompatibility, specific surface, chemical stability, and innocuous nature, a variety of nanomaterials have been suggested as potential candidates for DNA sensing. [8][9][10] Among them, fluorescent DNA nanosensors have obtained significant attention owing to their advantages of high sensitivity, convenient operation, and low signal-to-noise ratio. In general, probe DNA (pDNA) molecules acting as recognition elements are conjugated with the fluorescent nanomaterials and therefore made to form a hybrid specifically with the complementary target DNA (tDNA) molecules.…”