Researchers at Rensselaer have developed a new way to seek out specific proteins, including dangerous proteins such as anthrax toxin, and render them harmless using nothing but light. The technique lends itself to the creation of new antibacterial and antimicrobial films to help curb the spread of germs, and also holds promise for new methods of seeking out and killing tumors in the human body.
Scientists have long been interested in wrapping proteins around carbon nanotubes, and the process is used for various applications in imaging, biosensing, and cellular delivery. But this new study at Rensselaer is the first to remotely control the activity of these conjugated nanotubes. Details of the project are outlined in the December issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
A team of Rensselaer researchers led by Ravi Kane, professor of chemical and biological engineering, has worked for nearly a year to develop a means to remotely deactivate protein-wrapped carbon nanotubes by exposing them to invisible and near-infrared light. The group demonstrated this method by successfully deactivating anthrax toxin and other proteins.
“By attaching peptides to carbon nanotubes, we gave them the ability to selectively recognize a protein of interest in this case anthrax toxinfrom a mixture of different proteins,” Kane says. “Then, by exposing the mixture to light, we could selectively deactivate this protein without disturbing the other proteins in the mixture.”
By conjugating carbon nanotubes with different peptides, this process can be easily tailored to work on other harmful proteins, Kane says. Also, employing different wavelengths of light that can pass harmlessly through the human body, the remote control process will also be able to target and deactivate specific proteins or toxins in the human body. Shining light on the conjugated carbon nano-tubes creates free radicals, called reactive oxygen species. It was the presence of radicals, Kane says, that deactivated the proteins.
Kane’s new method for selective nanotube-assisted protein deactivation could be used in defense, homeland security, and laboratory settings to destroy harmful toxins and pathogens. The method could also offer a new method for the targeted destruction of tumor cells. By conjugating carbon
nanotubes with peptides engineered to seek out specific cancer cells, and then releasing those nanotubes into a patient, doctors may be able to use this remote protein deactivation technology as a powerful tool to prevent the spread of cancer.
Co-authors of the paper include Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering graduate students Amit Joshi and Shyam Sundhar Bale; post-
doctoral researcher Supriya Punyani; Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center Laboratory Manager Hoichang Yang; and Associate Professor Theodorian Borca-Tasciuc of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering.
The group has filed a patent disclosure for their new selective nanotube-assisted protein deactivation technology. The research project was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
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