Enzyme-powered micro- and nano-motors: key parameters for an application-oriented design

Abstract

Nature has inspired the creation of artificial micro- and nano-motors that self-propel converting chemical energy into mechanical action.

Toward Interdisciplinary Synergies in Molecular Communications: Perspectives from Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology, Communications Engineering and Philosophy of Science

“…Another interesting concept in the area of of nanotechnology is the development of nanomotors or also known as nanobots [ 30 ]. Nanomotors are active particles with the ability to exhibit autonomous motion by converting a chemical fuel or external irradiation into self-propulsion.…”

On Nanomachines and Their Future Perspectives in Biomedicine

“…Enzymes: Enzymes appeared as an alternative to metal catalysts owing to the fact that their protein nature is more acceptable for biological systems, and they exhibit unique catalytic ability (Figure 1b-i). [5,34,[47][48][49][50] They often show fast turnover rates with high substrate specificity, using substrates that are available in a living organism and producing typically harmless compounds that the body can further metabolize. In the beginning, the major challenges were however to preserve the enzyme integrity and activity upon conjugation to the carrier particle.…”

Light-Triggered Mechanical Disruption of Extracellular Barriers by Swarms of Enzyme-Powered Nanomotors for Enhanced Delivery

“…3 In general, nanomotors (NMs), as the next generation of robotic platforms in nanomedicine to rapidly delivering drug carriers to target locations. 4,5 Synthetic NMs based on a plethora of different propulsion mechanisms have been explored, including chemically powered motors 6,7 and motors powered by external physical stimuli (e.g., magnetic, acoustic, light). 5 While such systems have exciting prospects, like enhanced drug delivery efficiency when compared to passive particles, 8−11 most of these studies have been carried out in simple 2D cell cultures.…”

“…In general, nanocarriers must overcome two major limitations for crossing the different barriers: (1) passive diffusion and (2) steric hindrance. Scientists from multidisciplinary teams in the nanotechnology field have combined their efforts to tackle the hurdles associated with the first limitation by exploiting the use of nanoparticles (NPs) with autonomous motion, nanomotors (NMs), as the next generation of robotic platforms in nanomedicine to rapidly delivering drug carriers to target locations. , …”

“…In this study, we designed enzyme-powered NMs capable of forming laser-induced VNB. Among the different propulsion mechanisms, we chose enzyme-powered motion, since enzymes can use physiologically relevant fuels through catalytic reactions to power motion in in vivo conditions. ,, In particular, we made use of urease as it is arguably one of the most promising enzymes for the design of NMs due to its high catalytic turnover rate which confers superior self-propelling capabilities to NMs compared to other enzymes (e.g., acetylcholinesterase, glucose oxidase). , Moreover, it was demonstrated that urease-powered NMs exhibit collective behavior in the presence of urea as fuel, depicting enhanced fluid mixing and collective displacement forming patterns of high particle densities (we will further refer as swarm formation or swarming to this behavior) in vitro, and enhanced penetration, retention, and even convection and mixing in the bladder in vivo. The main goal of this study is to explore the use of swarms able to induce microenvironment modifications of biological barriers (Swarm 1) shielding target cells, facilitating the delivery of a second swarm (Swarm 2).…”