
A DNA-based voltmeter for organelles - ArtWomb
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/523019v1
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riskable
I don't usually get very excited about low-level microbiology stuff (actually,
just kidding, haha) but this has _enormous_ potential! If this works as well
as it _seems_ like it should then whole hosts of (technical) biology (leading
to medical) problems will cease to be "big problems".

Example: Say you've developed a new drug that--in hypothesis (thanks to
millions of combinatorial simulations)--could cure a certain disease but in
simple human cell testing the drug has turned out to be toxic... It kills the
cells. If only there were a way to figure out _why_ it were toxic you might be
able to modify the structure of your custom molecule so as to work around the
problem (rather than having to preform real world testing on potentially
millions of different variations of your drug).

With a process like this you could take that research to the next level by
figuring out say, that the reason your drug is toxic is because it disrupts
tRNA encoding inside of your targeted cell's rhibosomes (just picking a random
example organelle and it's function). You know this because--after
administering your drug--the "DNA voltmeter" dropped to near zero in the
rhibosomal membrane it was attached to.

"Oh! We probably just need to wrap the molecule in <insert common
pharmacuetical industry jargon> or deliver it via <insert bevy of complicated
biological mechanisms>!"

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daemonk
Here is a very general description of the system.

The DNA probe has:

\- conjugated voltage sensitive dye

\- a conjugated reference dye

\- a targeting motif

The targeting motif allows it to go into a specific organelle. The ratio of
voltage sensitive signal to reference dye signal is used as a read-out. They
calibrated and confirmed the probe by inducing artificial membrane potential
changes and seeing if the read-out signal correlates.

It's a cool system.

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vanderZwan
When it comes to _" things that make me feel like I'm living in a sci-fi
future"_, things like drones and the internet doesn't hold a candle to the
kind of stuff that is done in modern biological research, especially
"nanotech" stuff like this. It's mind-boggling.

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dnautics
Reading the article carefully (it's also VERY scant on experimental details) -
you have to take a dye and conjugate it to the DNA, so it's not like the cell
is producing theses voltmeters endogenously.

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deytempo
It’s truly incredible how elaborate a cell is

