Synergic mechanism and fabrication target for bipedal nanomotors

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel molecular mechanism enabling directional movement of homo-pedal bipedal nanomotors on minimally heterogeneous tracks, reducing system complexity and advancing autonomous nanomotor design.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed mechanism for directional nanomotor movement using only homo-pedal components and minimal track heterogeneity, simplifying fabrication requirements.

Findings

Mechanism enables directional movement with a single reagent species.

Normal mechanism differs from Brownian motor behavior.

Reduces system complexity for nanomotor fabrication.

Abstract

Inspired by dimeric motor proteins capable of undergoing transportation in living cells, significant efforts have been expended to the fabrication of track-walking nanomotors possessing two foot-like components that each can bind or detach from an array of anchorage groups on the track in response to local events of reagent consumption. The central problem in fabricating bipedal nanomotors is how the motor as a whole can gain the synergic capacity of directional track-walking, given the fact that each pedal component alone often is incapable of any directional drift. Implemented bipedal motors to date solve this thermodynamically intricate problem by an intuitive strategy that requires a hetero-pedal motor, multiple anchorage species for the track, and multiple reagent species for motor operation. Here we presented a detailed molecular mechanism by which motor-level directionality arises from a homo-pedal motor along a minimally heterogeneous track. Optimally, the operation may be reduced to a random supply of a single species of reagents to allow the motor's autonomous functioning. The mechanism suggests a distinct class of fabrication targets of drastically reduced system requirements. Intriguingly, a defective form of the mechanism falls into the realm of the well known Brownian motor mechanism, yet distinct features emerge from the normal working of the mechanism.