Harnessing Chemo-mechanical Energy Transduction to Create Systems that Selectively “Catch and Release” Biomolecules

Sponsor: Department of Energy

Inspired by the chemo-mechanically moderated transporting and sorting of specific biological molecules in living systems, we propose to develop biologically-inspired adaptive material systems that harness conversion of chemical and mechanical energy to perform programmable, high-efficiency catch, transport and release of specific biomolecules. To capture the cooperative processes of biomolecular signaling and transport, we will devise a new class of integrated materials that combine chemo-mechanical “smart” components: 1) stimuli-responsive hydrogels, which undergo a volume change in response to external cue, acting as “muscle” and 2) target molecule-specific binding species (such as aptamers, ligands, etc.) that can reversibly change molecular configuration to bind and release targets upon changes in temperature or pH. In such a system, hydrogel can convert chemical energy into mechanical energy by actuating embedded microscopic posts, which carry binding species. When submerged in a bilayer fluid containing a biological mixture, the moving posts bind targets and subsequently transport and release them into a different collecting fluid. This novel system provides efficient routes for a nondestructive, sequential ‘detection-and-separation’ of targets from complex biofluids, without the need for expensive tools or high-energy inputs. These studies will lay foundation for designing systems that translate a small-scale molecular input into a large-scale motion and enable programmable ‘catch and release’ of specific biomolecules, particles and cells. The platform is ideally suited for applications where separation of microliter samples is required for analysis with short turnaround times, such as the capture of contaminants in water or rare cells in body fluid for further studies. These attributes are critical to various chemical and biochemical processes where energy-efficient separations are needed for downstream processing.