Scientists interested in engineering tissue would like to find a way to get cells and other biological components to organize and assemble into an organ similar to the way they do naturally.
At Harvard’s Wyss Institute, Peng Yin, an assistant professor of systems biology, and his team found a way to program DNA to act as a glue that encourages gel-like cubes smaller than salt grains to self-assemble into larger structures. The cubes could be programmed to form scaffolding that hosts cells, which eventually grow into organs.
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The self-assembly works because of the way DNA sticks together. DNA is made of four molecules, called bases. They are adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, or A, G, C and T. To come together into the familiar ladder-like, double-helix structure of DNA, the molecules have to link in a specific order. The rungs of the ladder have to be either A linked to T or G linked to C. So, if a string of bases on one side of the double-helix ladder is AGCT, the rung on the other has to be TCGA. Other combinations will not bind to it. This binding property makes DNA perfect as a biological glue. Read more…
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Read more : Programmable DNA ‘Glue’ Self-Assembles Cells
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