Antibody activation using DNA-based logic gates

Abstract

Oligonucleotide-based molecular circuits offer the exciting possibility to introduce autonomous signal processing in biomedicine, synthetic biology, and molecular diagnostics. Here we introduce bivalent peptide-DNA conjugates as generic, noncovalent, and easily applicable molecular locks that allow the control of antibody activity using toehold-mediated strand displacement reactions. Employing yeast as a cellular model system, reversible control of antibody targeting is demonstrated with low nM concentrations of peptide-DNA locks and oligonucleotide displacer strands. Introduction of two different toehold strands on the peptide-DNA lock allowed signal integration of two different inputs, yielding logic OR- and AND-gates. The range of molecular inputs could be further extended to protein-based triggers by using protein-binding aptamers.

Keywords: DNA nanotechnology; antibodies; aptamers; molecular computing; peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates.