Cut and Paste for Cancer Treatment: A DNA Nanodevice that Cuts Out an RNA Marker Sequence to Activate a Therapeutic Function

DNA nanotechnology uses oligonucleotide strands to assemble molecular structures capable of performing useful operations. Here, we assembled a multifunctional prototype DNA nanodevice, DOCTR, that recognizes a single nucleotide mutation in a cancer marker RNA. The nanodevice then cuts out a signature sequence and uses it as an activator for a “therapeutic” function, namely, the cleavage of another RNA sequence. The proposed design is a prototype for a gene therapy DNA machine that cleaves a housekeeping gene only in the presence of a cancer-causing point mutation and suppresses cancer cells exclusively with minimal side effects to normal cells.