Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 7, 2025

10:28
Using Synthetic Biology to Engineer Living Cells That Interface with Programmable Materials
Published on: March 9, 2017
9.1K
Bioinspired Programmable Engineering of a Color-Change Biointerface based on Dual-Stimulation Regulation
Meihua Lin1, Hao Wan1, Jian Zhang1
1Engineering Research Center of Nano-Geomaterials of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China.
ACS Applied Bio Materials
|January 12, 2022
Summary
This study introduces a novel color-changing biointerface activated by light and DNA. This programmable interface demonstrates efficient color transformation, showing potential for real-world applications.
Area of Science:
- Biointerface Engineering
- DNA Nanotechnology
- Smart Materials
Background:
- Animals exhibit natural color-change abilities via pigment cells or guanine crystals.
- Artificial color-change interfaces are rare and often limited in stimulus response.
Purpose of the Study:
- To design a novel biointerface capable of programmable color change.
- To achieve cooperative stimulation response using light and DNA.
Main Methods:
- Constructed a biointerface combining fluorescent dye-labeled hairpin DNA and a photoresponsive molecule.
- Utilized UV light (stimulus 1) to cleave the photoresponsive molecule, exposing a toehold domain.
- Triggered color change via DNA strand displacement reaction with an invading DNA probe (stimulus 2).
Main Results:
- Transformation efficiency increased from 6.8% to 64% with increasing UV light duration (S1) in the presence of DNA probe (S2).
- Effective transformation efficiency was tuned from 5.3% to 72% by varying the amount of S2 after S1 stimulation.
- Demonstrated programmable activation and tunable response based on cooperative stimuli.
Conclusions:
- The developed biointerface successfully achieves programmable color change through cooperative light and DNA stimulation.
- The system shows high response efficiency and tunability, indicating significant potential for real-world applications.
- This work offers a new strategy for developing advanced smart biointerfaces.

