DNA-derived nanostructures selectively capture gram-positive bacteria

• Main Authors: Kim, Chan-Jin, Si, Zhangyong, Reghu, Sheethal, Guo, Zhong, Zhang, Kaixi, Li, Jianghua, Chan-Park, Mary B.
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Chemical engineering::Polymers and polymer manufacture; DNA Block Copolymer; Bacteria Targeting
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/154054
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We report the first demonstration of the efficient bacteria targeting properties of DNA-based polymeric micelles with high-density DNA corona. Nanoscale polymer micelles derived from DNA-b-polystyrene (DNA-b-PS) efficiently selected most tested Gram-positive strains over Gram-negative strains; single-strand DNAs were 20-fold less selective. We demonstrate that these targeting properties were derived from the interaction between densely packed DNA strands of the micelle corona and the peptidoglycan layers of Gram-positive bacteria. DNA-b-PS micelles incorporating magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) can efficiently capture and concentrate Gram-positive bacteria suggesting the simple applications of these DNA block copolymer micelles for concentrating bacteria. Adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G)-rich nanostructures were fabricated, respectively, for investigating the effect of sequence on Gram-selective bacteria targeting. T-rich micelles showed the most efficient targeting properties. The targeting properties of these DNA nanostructures toward Gram-positive bacteria may have applications as a targeted therapeutic delivery system.