Stimuli-responsive hydrogels undergoing trigger-controlled stiffness changes have attracted substantial interest as functional matrices for different applications. The base sequence of nucleic acids encodes structural and functional information into the DNA biopolymer. External stimuli such as metals ions, pH or light can be used as triggers to reversible switch nucleic acid structures. These features suggest that crosslinking of polymers matrices by means of stimuli-responsive DNA units could provide versatile means to design signal-triggered DNA-based hydrogels materials. We want report in an approach to create stimuli-responsive DNA-based hydrogel coated materials for controlled release of loads and drugs. The method involves activation of the hybridization chain-reaction (HCR) by a surface-confined promoter strand, in the presence of polymers chains modified with two DNA hairpin structures and appropriated stimuli-responsive tethers. Specifically, we will focus on: 1) Stimuli-responsive DNA-based hydrogel coated metal-organic framework nanoparticles (NMOFs). 2) Bi-layer DNA-based hydrogel coated CaCO3 microcapsules. The unique features of this system include: i) The spatial separation of two aqueous compartments that contain two different loads. ii) The triggered release of the loads by the selective unlocking of the outer/inner hydrogel layers or both. iii) Controlling chemical reactivity within the microcapsules confined volume. 3) Thermoresponsive plasmonic DNA-based hydrogel coated microcapsules as light responsive microcarriers. The irradiation of the plasmons associated with Au nanoparticles or nanorods are known to induce local heating. These thermoplasmonic effect will be used to dissociate the duplex nucleic acids, acting as temporary crosslinking elements in the hydrogels, leading to the selective ON/OFF release of the loads.

“Smart” DNA-based materials for controlled release

2019 Fall National Meeting

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