Muscle Proteins as High Speed Nano Transporters on Micro Patterns

This paper describes a biohybrid nano transporting device using muscle proteins of actin and myosin. These proteins are patterned on a glass substrate by a Parylene lift off process. A nano fluorescent particle was attached onto an actin filament by biotin-avidin interactions. We found that the actin filament is sufficiently flexible, so it can turn back at the edge of the pattern and is confined moving upon the micro patterns. The velocity of the transportation was around 4 µ m/s, which was about 40 times faster than that of kinesin and microtubule we used in MEMS2005 [ 1a]. This technique is useful for high speed transportation or actuation of MEMS/NEMS devices.