On May 5, a research team led by Associate Professor Fumiki Yakai of the Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University announced that he had succeeded in developing an artificial nanofiber that unravels the "spiral structure" when exposed to light.
Microfilaments, which are fibrous nanostructures, exist inside cells and are responsible for maintaining cell shape, controlling shape, and transferring mass within cells.These are formed by joining in a spiral.The construction of fibrous micromaterials with such a delicate structure with artificial molecules has been actively studied all over the world.This is because by using artificial materials and using molecules with various functions as a unit, it is possible to realize unique functions that biological systems do not have.
The research team has succeeded in developing an artificial nanofiber with a thickness of 10 nm that can be unwound by light.It was also found that the apparent length of the fiber (straight line distance from end to end) varies greatly from about 2 μm to 10 μm.
In the future, a drug delivery system that releases drugs contained in the spiral structure to the affected area at any time, and a nanosystem that expands a mesh-like fiber network at once from a compactly folded spiral structure to capture substances, etc. , It is expected to develop into smart nanomaterials that imitate biological functions at a high level.
Paper information: [Nature Communications] Light-induced unfolding and refolding of supramolecular polymer nanofibres
