Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

14 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

A light-driven artificial flytrap.

ABSTRACT: The sophistication, complexity and intelligence of biological systems is a continuous source of inspiration for mankind. Mimicking the natural intelligence to devise tiny systems that are capable of self-regulated, autonomous action to, for example, distinguish different targets, remains among the grand challenges in biomimetic micro-robotics. Herein, we demonstrate an autonomous soft device, a light-driven flytrap, that uses optical feedback to trigger photomechanical actuation. The design is based on light-responsive liquid-crystal elastomer, fabricated onto the tip of an optical fibre, which acts as a power source and serves as a contactless probe that senses the environment. Mimicking natural flytraps, this artificial flytrap is capable of autonomous closure and object recognition. It enables self-regulated actuation within the fibre-sized architecture, thus opening up avenues towards soft, autonomous small-scale devices.

SUBMITTER: Wani OM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5457518 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

A light-driven artificial flytrap.

Wani Owies M OM Zeng Hao H Priimagi Arri A

Nature communications 20170523

The sophistication, complexity and intelligence of biological systems is a continuous source of inspiration for mankind. Mimicking the natural intelligence to devise tiny systems that are capable of self-regulated, autonomous action to, for example, distinguish different targets, remains among the grand challenges in biomimetic micro-robotics. Herein, we demonstrate an autonomous soft device, a light-driven flytrap, that uses optical feedback to trigger photomechanical actuation. The design is b ...[more]

PMID: 28534872

Similar Datasets

Orthogonal navigation of multiple visible-light-driven artificial microswimmers.

Project description:Nano/microswimmers represent the persistent endeavors of generations of scientists towards the ultimate tiny machinery for device manufacturing, targeted drug delivery, and noninvasive surgery. In many of these envisioned applications, multiple microswimmers need to be controlled independently and work cooperatively to perform a complex task. However, this multiple channel actuation remains a challenge as the controlling signal, usually a magnetic or electric field, is applied globally over all microswimmers, which makes it difficult to decouple the responses of multiple microswimmers. Here, we demonstrate that a photoelectrochemically driven nanotree microswimmer can be easily coded with a distinct spectral response by loading it with dyes. By using different dyes, an individual microswimmer can be controlled and navigated independently of other microswimmers in a group. This development demonstrates the excellent flexibility of the light navigation method and paves the way for the development of more functional nanobots for applications that require high-level controllability.

| S-EPMC5681650 | biostudies-literature

Artificial light-driven ion pump for photoelectric energy conversion.

Project description:Biological light-driven ion pumps move ions against a concentration gradient to create a membrane potential, thus converting sunlight energy directly into an osmotic potential. Here, we describe an artificial light-driven ion pump system in which a carbon nitride nanotube membrane can drive ions thermodynamically uphill against an up to 5000-fold concentration gradient by illumination. The separation of electrons and holes in the membrane under illumination results in a transmembrane potential which is thought to be the foundation for the pumping phenomenon. When used for harvesting solar energy, a sustained open circuit voltage of 550 mV and a current density of 2.4 μA/cm2 can reliably be generated, which can be further scaled up through series and parallel circuits of multiple membranes. The ion transport based photovoltaic system proposed here offers a roadmap for the development of devices by using simple, cheap, and stable polymeric carbon nitride.

| S-EPMC6325115 | biostudies-literature

Chromatophores efficiently promote light-driven ATP synthesis and DNA transcription inside hybrid multicompartment artificial cells.

Project description:The construction of energetically autonomous artificial protocells is one of the most ambitious goals in bottom-up synthetic biology. Here, we show an efficient manner to build adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) synthesizing hybrid multicompartment protocells. Bacterial chromatophores from Rhodobacter sphaeroides accomplish the photophosphorylation of adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP) to ATP, functioning as nanosized photosynthetic organellae when encapsulated inside artificial giant phospholipid vesicles (ATP production rate up to ∼100 ATP∙s-1 per ATP synthase). The chromatophore morphology and the orientation of the photophosphorylation proteins were characterized by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and time-resolved spectroscopy. The freshly synthesized ATP has been employed for sustaining the transcription of a DNA gene, following the RNA biosynthesis inside individual vesicles by confocal microscopy. The hybrid multicompartment approach here proposed is very promising for the construction of full-fledged artificial protocells because it relies on easy-to-obtain and ready-to-use chromatophores, paving the way for artificial simplified-autotroph protocells (ASAPs).

| S-EPMC7896284 | biostudies-literature

Flytrap genome

Project description:Genome of Dionaea muscipula

| PRJEB35195 | ENA

Site-Directed RNA Editing in Vivo Can Be Triggered by the Light-Driven Assembly of an Artificial Riboprotein.

Project description:Site-directed RNA editing allows for the manipulation of RNA and protein function by reprogramming genetic information at the RNA level. For this we assemble artificial RNA-guided editases and demonstrate their transcript repair activity in cells and in developing embryos of the annelid Platynereis dumerilii. A hallmark of our assembly strategy is the covalent attachment of guideRNA and editing enzyme by applying the SNAP-tag technology, a process that we demonstrate here to be readily triggered by light in vitro, in mammalian cell culture, and also in P. dumerilii. Lacking both sophisticated chemistry and extensive genetic engineering, this technology provides a convenient route for the light-dependent switching of protein isoforms. The presented strategy may also serve as a blue-print for the engineering of addressable machineries that apply tailored nucleic acid analogues to manipulate RNA or DNA site-specifically in living organisms.

| S-EPMC4731850 | biostudies-literature

Model-driven generation of artificial yeast promoters

Project description:Promoters play a central role in controlling gene regulation; however, a small set of promoters is used for most genetic construct design in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The ability to generate and utilize models that accurately predict protein expression from promoter sequence may enable rapid generation of novel useful promoters, facilitating synthetic biology efforts in this model organism. We measured the activity of over 675,000 unique sequences in a constitutive promoter library, and over 327,000 sequences in a library of inducible promoters. Training an ensemble of convolutional neural networks jointly on the two datasets enabled very high (R2 > 0.79) predictive accuracies on multiple prediction tasks. We developed model-guided design strategies which yielded large, sequence-diverse sets of novel promoters exhibiting activities similar to current best-in-class sequences. In addition to providing large sets of new promoters, our results show the value of model-guided design as an approach for generating DNA parts.

2019-12-01 | GSE135464 | GEO

Fluid-driven origami-inspired artificial muscles.

Project description:Artificial muscles hold promise for safe and powerful actuation for myriad common machines and robots. However, the design, fabrication, and implementation of artificial muscles are often limited by their material costs, operating principle, scalability, and single-degree-of-freedom contractile actuation motions. Here we propose an architecture for fluid-driven origami-inspired artificial muscles. This concept requires only a compressible skeleton, a flexible skin, and a fluid medium. A mechanical model is developed to explain the interaction of the three components. A fabrication method is introduced to rapidly manufacture low-cost artificial muscles using various materials and at multiple scales. The artificial muscles can be programed to achieve multiaxial motions including contraction, bending, and torsion. These motions can be aggregated into systems with multiple degrees of freedom, which are able to produce controllable motions at different rates. Our artificial muscles can be driven by fluids at negative pressures (relative to ambient). This feature makes actuation safer than most other fluidic artificial muscles that operate with positive pressures. Experiments reveal that these muscles can contract over 90% of their initial lengths, generate stresses of ?600 kPa, and produce peak power densities over 2 kW/kg-all equal to, or in excess of, natural muscle. This architecture for artificial muscles opens the door to rapid design and low-cost fabrication of actuation systems for numerous applications at multiple scales, ranging from miniature medical devices to wearable robotic exoskeletons to large deployable structures for space exploration.

| S-EPMC5740677 | biostudies-literature

The protein composition of the digestive fluid from the venus flytrap sheds light on prey digestion mechanisms.

Project description:The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is one of the most well-known carnivorous plants because of its unique ability to capture small animals, usually insects or spiders, through a unique snap-trapping mechanism. The animals are subsequently killed and digested so that the plants can assimilate nutrients, as they grow in mineral-deficient soils. We deep sequenced the cDNA from Dionaea traps to obtain transcript libraries, which were used in the mass spectrometry-based identification of the proteins secreted during digestion. The identified proteins consisted of peroxidases, nucleases, phosphatases, phospholipases, a glucanase, chitinases, and proteolytic enzymes, including four cysteine proteases, two aspartic proteases, and a serine carboxypeptidase. The majority of the most abundant proteins were categorized as pathogenesis-related proteins, suggesting that the plant's digestive system evolved from defense-related processes. This in-depth characterization of a highly specialized secreted fluid from a carnivorous plant provides new information about the plant's prey digestion mechanism and the evolutionary processes driving its defense pathways and nutrient acquisition.

| S-EPMC3494193 | biostudies-literature

Artificial Supramolecular Pumps Powered by Light.

Project description:The development of artificial nanoscale motors that can use energy from a source to perform tasks requires systems capable of performing directionally controlled molecular movements and operating away from chemical equilibrium. Here, the design, synthesis and properties of pseudorotaxanes are described, in which a photon input triggers the unidirectional motion of a macrocyclic ring with respect to a non-symmetric molecular axle. The photoinduced energy ratcheting at the basis of the pumping mechanism is validated by measuring the relevant thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. Owing to the photochemical behavior of the azobenzene moiety embedded in the axle, the pump can repeat its operation cycle autonomously under continuous illumination. NMR spectroscopy was used to observe the dissipative non-equilibrium state generated in situ by light irradiation. We also show that fine changes in the axle structure lead to an improvement in the performance of the motor. Such results highlight the modularity and versatility of this minimalist pump design, which provides facile access to dynamic systems that operate under photoinduced non-equilibrium regimes.

| S-EPMC8453702 | biostudies-literature

Model-driven generation of artificial yeast promoters.

Project description:Promoters play a central role in controlling gene regulation; however, a small set of promoters is used for most genetic construct design in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Generating and utilizing models that accurately predict protein expression from promoter sequences would enable rapid generation of useful promoters and facilitate synthetic biology efforts in this model organism. We measure the gene expression activity of over 675,000 sequences in a constitutive promoter library and over 327,000 sequences in an inducible promoter library. Training an ensemble of convolutional neural networks jointly on the two data sets enables very high (R2?>?0.79) predictive accuracies on multiple sequence-activity prediction tasks. We describe model-guided design strategies that yield large, sequence-diverse sets of promoters exhibiting activities higher than those represented in training data and similar to current best-in-class sequences. Our results show the value of model-guided design as an approach for generating useful DNA parts.

| S-EPMC7192914 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data