October 2024 Projects
Antibiotic resistance is a growing worldwide human health issue. A review from the Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections Reference Unit estimates that by 2050 the global cost of antimicrobial resistance will be up to $100 trillion and will account for 10 million extra deaths a year, reinforcing the urgency of finding novel and efficient ways to treat this problem. We explore the potential of DNA nanostructures, both as a sensor that binds to bacteria in a specific and efficient manner and as a platform to deliver active antimicrobials to bacterial cells.
DNA nanostructures are made by exploiting the base-pairing property of DNA to construct two- or three-dimensional nanostructures that can be easily customised to deliver a variety of payloads and also to carry “anchors” that will enable attachment to specific targets. One promising anchoring mechanism is the use of DNA aptamers. Aptamers are oligonucleotide or peptide molecules that bind to a specific target. We recently showed the use DNA nanostructures for the specific targeting of bacterial cells, however, the selection of aptamers that bind specific proteins on the bacterial surface, still remains a challenge. This thus presents a unique opportunity for a novel therapeutic strategy, and is timely in the face of the growing antibiotic resistance crisis. The aim of this project is to select aptamers that are specific and show high binding affinity towards bacterial outer membrane proteins and characterise the interaction with the targets through a combination of atomic force microscopy, super-resolution microscopy and biochemical analysis.
Keywords: Antibiotic resistance, DNA aptamers, nanostructures, microscopy, drug development