Browsing by Department "Biohybrid Materials"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Aptamer-embedded DNA origami cage for detecting (glycated) hemoglobin with a surface plasmon resonance sensor
(2020-09-15) Duanghathaipornsuk, Surachet; Shen, Boxuan; Cameron, Brent D.; Ijäs, Heini; Linko, Veikko; Kostiainen, Mauri; Kim, Dong-Shik
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
DNA origami-based cages functionalized with aptamer motifs were used to detect hemoglobin and glycated hemoglobin. The binding between the cages and hemoglobin was monitored using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. One DNA strand in the nano-cage was replaced with an aptamer that demonstrated a high affinity to hemoglobin (Hb) or glycated hemoglobin (gHb). Three types of the DNA nano-cages designed to fit the size and shape of hemoglobin were evaluated: one without an aptamer, one with the Hb-affinity aptamer (HA) and one with the gHb-affinity aptamer (GHA). Both DNA nano-cages embedded with HA and GHA showed significantly more stable binding with Hb and gHb by 5 and 9 times, respectively, than the aptamers directly immobilized on the SPR surface. HA-embedded DNA and GHA-embedded DNA improved the sensor selectivities by 9 times and 37 times between Hb and gHb.
Peptide-guided resiquimod-loaded lignin nanoparticles convert tumor-associated macrophages from M2 to M1 phenotype for enhanced chemotherapy
(2020-10-02) Figueiredo, Patrícia; Lepland, Anni; Scodeller, Pablo; Fontana, Flavia; Torrieri, Giulia; Tiboni, Mattia; Shahbazi, Mohammad Ali; Casettari, Luca; Kostiainen, Mauri A.; Hirvonen, Jouni; Teesalu, Tambet; Santos, Hélder A.
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Nanomedicines represent innovative and promising alternative technologies to improve the therapeutic effects of different drugs for cancer ablation. Targeting M2-like tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) has emerged as a favorable therapeutic approach to fight against cancer through the modulation of the tumor microenvironment. However, the immunomodulatory molecules used for this purpose present side effects upon systemic administration, which limits their clinical translation. Here, the biocompatible lignin polymer is used to prepare lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) that carry a dual agonist of the toll-like receptors TLR7/8 (resiquimod, R848). These LNPs are targeted to the CD206-positive M2-like TAMs using the “mUNO” peptide, in order to revert their pro-tumor phenotype into anti-tumor M1-like macrophages in the tumor microenvironment of an aggressive triple-negative in vivo model of breast cancer. Overall, we show that targeting the resiquimod (R848)-loaded LNPs to the M2-like macrophages, using very low dosesof R848, induces a profound shift in the immune cells in the tumor microenvironment towards an anti-tumor immune state, by increasing the representation of M1-like macrophages, cytotoxic T cells, and activated dendritic cells. This effect consequently enhances the anticancer effect of the vinblastine (Vin) when co-administered with R848-loaded LNPs.
Plasmonic nanostructures through DNA-assisted lithography
(2018-02-01) Shen, Boxuan; Linko, Veikko; Tapio, Kosti; Pikker, Siim; Lemma, Tibebe; Gopinath, Ashwin; Gothelf, Kurt V.; Kostiainen, Mauri A.; Toppari, J. Jussi
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Programmable self-assembly of nucleic acids enables the fabrication of custom, precise objects with nanoscale dimensions. These structures can be further harnessed as templates to build novel materials such as metallic nanostructures, which are widely used and explored because of their unique optical properties and their potency to serve as components of novel metamaterials. However, approaches to transfer the spatial information of DNA constructions to metal nanostructures remain a challenge. We report a DNA-assisted lithography (DALI) method that combines the structural versatility of DNA origami with conventional lithography techniques to create discrete, well-defined, and entirely metallic nanostructures with designed plasmonic properties. DALI is a parallel, high-throughput fabrication method compatible with transparent substrates, thus providing an additional advantage for optical measurements, and yields structures with a feature size of ~10 nm. We demonstrate its feasibility by producing metal nanostructures with a chiral plasmonic response and bowtie-shaped nanoantennas for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. We envisage that DALI can be generalized to large substrates, which would subsequently enable scale-up production of diverse metallic nanostructures with tailored plasmonic features.