Biological Nanoscaffolds from Hierarchical Construction to Applications

TL;DR

This review explores how biological scaffolds, made from DNA/RNA and proteins, offer unique advantages for assembling nanoparticles and delivering drugs due to their structure and biocompatibility.

Contribution

The paper systematically classifies and examines biological scaffolds based on nucleic acids and proteins, highlighting their structural features and applications.

Findings

Biological scaffolds offer advantages over synthetic ones due to their spatial structures and biocompatibility.

Nucleic acid and protein-based scaffolds are effective for assembling inorganic nanoparticles and drug delivery.

The structural symmetry of biomacromolecules influences the function of assembled scaffolds.

Abstract

Inspired by natural scaffolds, artificial scaffolds have garnered significant attention in recent years. Compared with synthetic scaffolds such as organic and polymer scaffolds, biological scaffolds from the foundational biomolecules nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) and proteins demonstrate distinct advantages in the assembly of inorganic nanoparticles and proteins, as well as in drug delivery. These advantages stem from their exquisite spatial structures, genetically encoded programmability, and their favorable biocompatibility, which is attributed to natural building blocks and degradable backbones that minimize long-term cytotoxicity. The intrinsic properties and structural symmetry of biomacromolecules as building blocks often determine the properties of the corresponding assemblies, and thus greatly influence their functions. In this review, we classify bottom-up constructed biological scaffolds according to these two primary constituent classes (nucleic acids and proteins) to examine their framework structures and key features. We also discuss the relevant applications of artificial bioscaffolds. As an emerging class of nanomaterial with precise structures and genetic programmability, biological scaffolds hold significant promise for future development.

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