Biomedical Applications of DNA-Nanomaterials Based on Metallic Nanoparticles and DNA Self-Assembled Nanostructures

DNA is the carrier of genetic information, and its sequence can be designed to realize many important functions, including DNAzyme, aptamer and even structurally precise nanomaterials. The development of DNA nanotechnology combined functional nucleic acids with nanomaterials for various effective biomedical applications. Here, we reviewed the application of DNA-nanomaterials in two biomedical fields: early diagnosis and drug delivery. And in each field, we mainly focused on two kinds of nanomaterials: metallic nanoparticles and DNA self-assembled nanomaterials. DNA metallic nanomaterials showed unique optical, electronic and magnetic properties in bioanalysis, and when functioned by DNA, their specificity was improved for both biosensor development and drug delivery. More recently, many DNA self-assembled nanomaterials were introduced into biomedical application for their well-defined structure and excellent biocompatibility. We summarized the research of these two kinds of DNA-nanomaterials for biomedical purposes, and finally made some prospection about their future development.