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Biology of TiO2–oligonucleotide nanocomposites

Nature Materials volume 2, pages 343–346 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Emerging areas of nanotechnology hold the promise of overcoming the limitations of existing technologies for intracellular manipulation. These new developments provide approaches for the creation of chemical–biological hybrid nanocomposites that can be introduced into cells and subsequently used to initiate intracellular processes or biochemical reactions. Such nanocomposites would advance medical biotechnology, just as they are improving microarray technology and imaging in biology and medicine, and introducing new possibilities in chemistry and material sciences. Here we describe the behaviour of 45-Å nanoparticles of titanium dioxide semiconductor combined with oligonucleotide DNA into nanocomposites in vivo and in vitro. These nanocomposites not only retain the intrinsic photocatalytic capacity of TiO2 and the bioactivity of the oligonucleotide DNA (covalently attached to the TiO2 nanoparticle), but also possess the chemically and biologically unique new property of a light-inducible nucleic acid endonuclease, which could become a new tool for gene therapy.

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Figure 1: Atomic force microscopy image of TiO2–oligonucleotide nanocomposites hybridized with long (phage) DNA.
Figure 2: Scan of a 21 μm × 21 μm area with a single nucleus containing 3.6 × 106 nanoparticles.
Figure 3: PAGE of single-stranded (^) and double-stranded (*) DNA oligonucleotides.

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Acknowledgements

T.P., N.S., M.P., J.O. and G.W. were supported by National Institute of Health grants CA81375, CA73042, and NS21442; T.P., T.R., G.W., J.M., S.V., N.S., B.L., M.T. and G.W. were supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, 60611, Illinois, USA

    Tatjana Paunesku, Nataša Stojićević & Gayle Woloschak

  2. Biosciences Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, 60439, Illinois, USA

    Tatjana Paunesku, Nataša Stojićević, Miroslava Protić, Jeremy Oryhon & Gayle Woloschak

  3. Chemistry Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, 60439, Illinois, USA

    Tijana Rajh, Gary Wiederrecht, Nataša Stojićević & Marion Thurnauer

  4. Experimental Facilities Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, 60439, Illinois, USA

    Jörg Maser, Stefan Vogt & Barry Lai

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  1. Tatjana Paunesku
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Correspondence to Gayle Woloschak.

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Paunesku, T., Rajh, T., Wiederrecht, G. et al. Biology of TiO2–oligonucleotide nanocomposites. Nature Mater 2, 343–346 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat875

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