I posted a story from Purdue News today, here:
http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=34269
Here is the abstract for the story:
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Bottom-up assembly of RNA Arrays and Superstructures
as Potential Parts in Nanotechnology
Dan Shu, Wulf-Dieter Moll, Zhaoxiang Deng,
Chengde Mao and Peixuan Guo
(Department and Pathobiology and Department of Chemistry)
DNA has been extensively scrutinized for its feasibility as parts in nanotechnology, but another natural building block, RNA, has been largely ignored. RNA can be manipulated to form versatile shapes, thus providing an element of adaptability to DNA nanotechnology, which is predominantly based upon a double-helical structure. The DNA-packaging motor of bacterial virus phi29 contains six DNA-packaging pRNAs (pRNA), which together form a hexameric ring via loop/loop interaction. Here we report that this pRNA can be redesigned to form a variety of structures and shapes, including twins, tetramers, rods, triangles, and arrays several microns in size via interaction of programmed helical regions and loops. RNA array formation required a defined nucleotide number for twisting of the interactive helix and a palindromic sequence. Such arrays are unusually stable and resistant to a wide range of temperatures, salt concentrations, and pH.
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I was wondering if this kind of thing has any impact on the recent discussions we've had on RNA being the building blocks of life.
Would this imply that these nanotech machines are living entities?
TeleMad, I would be especially interested in your comments on this story.
Tormod
