IT WORKED for the ancient Greeks, so why shouldn鈥檛 it work for us? Some cancers are resistant to chemotherapy, but we can attack them successfully by hiding drugs inside folded-up DNA.
DNA origami involves folding a single strand of DNA into a complex pattern, creating a 3D structure. at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology in Beijing, China, and colleagues loaded a tubular piece of folded DNA with doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug. The DNA Trojan horse delivered a dose of the drug that proved lethal to human breast-cancer cells, even though they had developed resistance to doxorubicin ().
鈥淭his is the first study to demonstrate that DNA origami can be used to circumvent drug resistance,鈥� says at Arizona State University in Tempe, who jointly led the work. The cancer cells may not recognise the DNA origami as a threat in the way that free doxorubicin is, he suggests. The folded DNA might also alter the pH inside the cells, increasing the drug鈥檚 activity.
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