Research Specifications

New class of materials such as nanoparticles, nanotubes and nanowires have been widely used for biosensing and medical diagnostic applications in recent years. Boron-nitride nanotubes (BNNT) observed to be candidates for biomedical applications due to their uniformity and stability in dispersion in solution. BNNTs with distinct properties of their own like to be nontoxic to health and environment due to their chemical inertness and structural stability are more suitable for medical applications such as drug delivery [1,2] . In this study in order to design a novel drug delivery system, we used known non-coding RNA aptamer that has been experimentally prepared by Na Li et all [3] in complex with (12,12) BNNT to avoid tumor cell growth. RNA aptamer have the ability to eliminate cancer stem cells, according to their high affinity and specificity and also they made a fascinating tool in detecting diseased cells in histological sections [4] . Molecular dynamic simulation allows us to study the movements of biomolecular systems. We performed 60 simulation time with 1 fs time steps, by using NAMD package with CHARMM-36 force field, on the considered aptamer and (12,12) BNNT complex. At the end of simulation, we analyses structural parameters such as the root mean square deviation (RMSD), difference of center of mass of aptamer and nanotube (COM), the number of hydrogen bonds of RNA aptamer solely and in complex and so on. Also the energetics analysis including the non-boning and van der Waals interaction energies between aptamer and BNNT had been done. The result of difference of COM indicates that aptamer had been properly immobilized on the nanotube's surface. The RMSD shows that the immobilization process of aptamer on BNNT made no significant deformation on the RNA structure. Finally at the studied qualification and for this special aptamer, the results prove the high ability of BNNT as a novel delivery agent