DNA programs a cell-free material to build its own motors and move
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Researchers have created a material that manufactures the proteins responsible for cell movement, without needing intact living cells. By embedding cell-free gene expression into a thin sheet of protein filaments, they were able to make the material wrinkle, rise into blister-like shapes and break into bundles that flow around one another.
The instructions driving these transformations are built into the material itself—in DNA. Changing the genetic program made the filaments sustain flowing motion, stop after a burst of activity or repeatedly speed up and slow down.
The study, published in Nature Materials, demonstrates mechanical behavior that is “genetically programmed and executed autonomously,” as the authors describe it. Once assembled, the material can change its activity without researchers intervening at each step.
Combining these instructions with patterned boundaries offers a path toward engineering genetically encoded mechanochemical materials and autonomous active systems.
Building its own motors
Scientists have previously made moving materials from cellular components. In a 2012 study, for example, molecular motors drove protein filaments into chaotic flows. The current work gives such a material an internal system for producing and regulating its motors instead of using an external force.
The team, including Rochelle Silverman and Alexandra Tayar of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science and collaborators at the University of Minnesota, began with microtubules—microscopic protein filaments that help form the internal scaffolding of cells.
They assembled the filaments into a dense sheet in a well about 3.3 millimeters across, then supplied DNA and a mixture containing the cellular machinery and ingredients needed to make proteins.
The DNA encoded kinesin, a motor protein that consumes chemical fuel to move along microtubules. As newly made motors accumulated and clustered together, they connected neighboring filaments and slid them past one another.
Growing internal forces made the sheet buckle. Its raised structures eventually fractured, leaving bundles in swirling, irregular motion.
Adding more motor-coding DNA generally brought the action forward. In one set of experiments, movement began after roughly four hours at the lowest concentration and in about one hour at the highest. Beyond a certain concentration, extra DNA did little to increase the eventual flow speed. It chiefly changed when the material became active.
Adding a brake—and a rhythm
Making motors could start the movement, but controlling what happened next required additional instructions.
The researchers added DNA encoding PRC1, a protein that links microtubules together. At sufficiently high levels, those connections resisted the motors’ efforts to slide the filaments. Depending on the balance of instructions, the sheet bent and stopped, or flowed briefly before coming to rest.
To create repeating changes, the team built a genetic feedback loop. Motor production triggered production of another protein that suppressed further motor-making. Protein-degrading machinery cleared away both components, allowing production to recover. With the right balance, this cycle made the flow repeatedly speed up and slow down. Stronger repression produced a single burst followed by a stop.
Giving the movement a direction
DNA was only one way to shape the result. Narrow channels constrained the sheet’s deformations, while patterned ridges guided their direction and allowed some raised structures to extend several millimeters.
The material’s working life also depended on its supplies. In one experiment, protein production leveled off after about six hours as resources ran down. However, motion continued beyond 10 hours in the kinesin experiment because the mixture kept regenerating the chemical fuel used by the existing motors.
Ultimately, the study presents a path toward self-morphing materials that use biochemical circuits and mechanical design to accomplish a wide variety of functions. Future studies with more elaborate gene circuits could potentially program richer sequences of mechanical behavior.
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Publication details
Rochelle Silverman et al., Gene-driven self-morphing microtubule-based active matter, Nature Materials (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-026-02767-4
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DNA programs a cell-free material to build its own motors and move (2026, October 23)
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