A molecule motor "horse" could transport nanoparticles down a carbon nanotube by "walking."
The molecular motor was inspired by natural entities that evolved to perform specific tasks that help keep cells running, a Purdue University news release reported.
Similar synthetic motors could be used in the future for "drug delivery, manufacturing and chemical processing," the news release reported.
These biological motors are usually formed from proteins; researchers are working to create a man-made version using DNA, which consists of a sequence of adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.
The synthetic motors are able to "walk," but they move much more slowly than a natural motor.
"We are in the very early stages of developing these kinds of synthetic molecular motors," Jong Hyun Choi, a Purdue University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, said in the news release.
The synthetic motor has a core with an arm above and below it. AS the motor moves down the nanotube it picks up energy from RNA strands.
"Our motors extract chemical energy from RNA molecules decorated on the nanotubes and use that energy to fuel autonomous walking along the carbon nanotube track," Choi said.
An enzyme in the core "cleaves off" part of the RNA strand, the upper DNA then moves forward to combine with the RNA. This moves the rest of the DNA forwards. The process repeats in a "walking" pattern until the motor reaches the end of the nanotube track.
In this study, the team used the motor to transport cadmium disulfide nanoparticles down the nanotube; these particles were only about four nanometers in diameter.
The researchers used a combination of two fluorescent imaging systems to watch how the motor "walked." The cadmium disulfide nanoparticles glowed fluorescent in visible light while the nanotubes are fluorescent in near-infrared.
The team's observations showed it took the motor 20 hours to walk down a several-microns-long nanotube. The team believes the process could be sped up if the temperature or pH (acidity level) was altered.
