Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA.
J Am Chem Soc. 2012 Jan 25;134(3):1606-16. doi: 10.1021/ja207976q. Epub 2012 Jan 17.
Among the key goals of structural DNA nanotechnology are to build highly ordered structures self-assembled from individual DNA motifs in 1D, 2D, and finally 3D. All three of these goals have been achieved with a variety of motifs. Here, we report the design and characterization of 1D nanotubes and 2D arrays assembled from three novel DNA motifs, the 6-helix bundle (6HB), the 6-helix bundle flanked by two helices in the same plane (6HB+2), and the 6-helix bundle flanked by three helices in a trigonal arrangement (6HB+3). Long DNA nanotubes have been assembled from all three motifs. Such nanotubes are likely to have applications in structural DNA nanotechnology, so it is important to characterize their physical properties. Prominent among these are their rigidities, described by their persistence lengths, which we report here. We find large persistence lengths in all species, around 1-5 μm. The magnitudes of the persistence lengths are clearly related to the designs of the linkages between the unit motifs. Both the 6HB+2 and the 6HB+3 motifs have been successfully used to produce well-ordered 2D periodic arrays via sticky-ended cohesion.
在结构 DNA 纳米技术的主要目标中，有构建由单个 DNA 基元自组装而成的高度有序结构，包括一维、二维，最终是三维结构。所有这三个目标都已经通过各种基元实现了。在这里，我们报告了由三个新的 DNA 基元设计和表征的一维纳米管和二维阵列，这三个基元是 6 螺旋束（6HB）、同一平面上两个螺旋侧翼的 6 螺旋束（6HB+2）和三螺旋呈三角排列的 6 螺旋束（6HB+3）。所有这三个基元都可以组装成长的 DNA 纳米管。这种纳米管可能在结构 DNA 纳米技术中有应用，因此对其物理性质进行表征很重要。其中突出的是它们的刚性，由它们的持久性长度来描述，我们在这里报告了它们的持久性长度。我们发现所有物种的持久性长度都很大，约为 1-5μm。持久性长度的大小显然与单元基元之间的连接设计有关。6HB+2 和 6HB+3 基元都已经成功地通过粘性末端凝聚作用用于产生有序的二维周期性阵列。
