Materials Research Society
Meeting,
Boston, December, 2002
Remote-control for bacteria
Radio waves switch proteins on and
off.
6 December 2002
PHILIP BALL
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| E.coli could be made
to glow on demand |
| © Q.Sun/Uni of Texas. |
|
|
Remote-controlled bacteria could be just around the corner.
Researchers have found a way to switch cell processes on and off
with radio waves.
The goal is "microbial machines", Joseph Jacobson of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge told this
week's Materials Research Society meeting in Boston.
Cells, he explained, could be equipped with a toolbox of
'software' - such as the ability to glow periodically1.
Remote-controlled enzymes could cut and paste these modules as
if downloading a particular program into the cells. This is a
long way off, but the components are taking shape.
Jacobson's team uses an electromagnetic field to switch on
and off an enzyme that snips open the genetic messenger molecule
RNA. First they attach a tiny particle of gold to the enzyme.
Only millionths of a millimetre across, the gold nanoparticle
acts as an antenna, harvesting energy from a radio-frequency
electromagnetic field. This energy breaks up the enzyme,
rendering it useless. When the field is switched off, the parts
of the enzyme re-assemble of their own accord.
Earlier this year the same team manipulated DNA in a similar
way2 . They stuck a gold antenna to
DNA strands that spontaneously curl up into hairpin structures
where the two ends zip together. A radio-frequency pulse picked
up by the gold antenna opened up the hairpin.
Showing that the approach works for proteins too greatly
increases the range of things that might be done with it -
proteins orchestrate nearly all the chemical processes in a
cell. |
