Stability of DNA nanostructures by junction penalty.

DNA nanostructures have been attracting much attention because of their well-controlled nanoarchitectural features. However, regulating the stability of DNA nanostructures is less well understood because of complexity. In this paper, the stability of DNA nanostructure was studied first in the form of simple building blocks. Since these DNA nanostructures have junctions on the center of the structures, the junctions were mainly investigated as a factor in the instability. In addition, regulation of the stability of complicated nanostructures based on these building blocks was achieved. Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) methods were employed to monitor the conformation change with nano-scale sensitivity. The junction effect on DNA nanostructures was monitored with labeling FRET pairs at various conditions. DNA tile structures was also thoroughly studied by FRET.