DNA Nanotechnology in Oligonucleotide Drug Delivery Systems: Prospects for Bio-nanorobots in Cancer Treatment

DNA-based nanomaterials have shown great potential in numerous applications, thanks to their unique properties including DNA's various molecular interactions, programmability, and versatility with biological modules. Meanwhile, the DNA origami platforms have shown promise in the creation of drug carriers. This technique has paved the way for the production of nanomachines with outstanding performance. Moreover, DNA’s encoding capability and its massive parallelism help us to manipulate it for DNA computation. The DNA nanotechnology method holds potential, particularly for oligonucleotide therapeutics that enable precision medicine for cancers. Here, we explore the potential of DNA nanotechnology in this context, focusing on the DNA origami method and our efforts to streamline its production process. We then delve into studies demonstrating the application of DNA nanotechnology in delivering oligonucleotide drugs for tumor targeting. Following this, we examine DNA-based dynamic nanodevices that can be activated through molecular binding, environmental stimuli, and external field manipulation. Subsequently, we investigate the role of DNA computation in the production of logic gates, DNA circuits, data storage, and machine learning. Finally, we envision the future development of 'bio-nanorobots' based on DNA, enabled by advancements in DNA computation. We propose that combining DNA computation with DNA nanomachines could facilitate the realization of this vision, distinguishing it from conventional drug delivery systems.