Asian-Pacific Aquaculture 2019

June 19 - 21, 2019

Chennai Tamil Nadu - India

DNA ORIGAMI – DRUG DELIVERY

Safna P * and Gireesh Babu P
 
Department of Fish Biotectnology, ICAR - Central Institute of Fisheries Education,
Versova, Andheri West, Mumbai- 400 061
 safnapmohammed@gmail.com
 

Targeted drug delivery describes a new medical concept in which a therapeutic compound is transported around the body to reach its target before taking action. To realize this, there is a need for some sophisticated design. A new way of using nanotechnology in drug design is inspired from the Japanese art of folding paper called origami, in this context, it is 'DNA origami'. It starts with a single strand of DNA and is folded just like in Origami. Erben and coworkers demonstrated that they could encapsulate a single protein, cytochrome c, in a central cavity of a DNA tetrahedron. This work has inspired the idea of using DNA nanostructures as a nanocarrier in a drug delivery system. DNA makes people, plants and animals, so DNA is in itself not dangerous. We know DNA as storage of genetic information, but this technology uses DNA as a building material. Researches have showed that these DNA origami structures can open the lit upon the recognition of specific molecules and this property can be used to target some abundant molecules in the cancer cells to provide targeted drug delivery in cancer therapy. This makes it possible for the DNA origami structures to identify sick cells from healthy cells and only cure the sick cells in that part of the body. DNA origami structures have an exceptional potential for being used as a drug delivery vehicle. However DNA origami structures in therapy is not something we will see in near future. Currently these structures are very expensive to produce in amounts for therapeutic purposes and still a lot of challenges must be addressed.