Host–Guest Tethered DNA Transducer: ATP Fueled Release of a Protein Inhibitor from Cucurbit[7]uril

Host–guest complexes are emerging as powerful components in functional systems with applications ranging from materials to biomedicine. In particular, CB7 based host–guest complexes have received much attention for the controlled release of drugs due to the remarkable ability of CB7 toward binding input molecules in water with high affinity leading to displacement of CB7 from included pharmacophores (or from drug loaded porous particles). However, the release of bound guests from CB7 in response to endogenous biological molecules remains limited since the input biomolecule needs to have the appropriate chemical structure to bind tightly into the CB7 cavity. Herein we describe a synthetic transducer based on self-assembling DNA–small molecule chimeras (DCs) that is capable of converting a chosen biological input, adenosine triphosphate (ATP; that does not directly bind to the CB7 host), into functional displacement of a protein inhibitor that is bound within the CB7 host. Our systemwhich features the first example of a covalent CB-DNA conjugateis highly modular and can be adapted to enable responsiveness to other biologically/clinically relevant stimuli via its split DNA aptamer architecture