De novo design of an RNA tile that self-assembles into a homo-octameric nanoprism.

Rational, de novo design of RNA nanostructures can potentially integrate a wide array of structural and functional diversities. Such nanostructures have great promises in biomedical applications. Despite impressive progress in this field, all RNA building blocks (or tiles) reported so far are not geometrically well defined. They are generally flexible and can only assemble into a mixture of complexes with different sizes. To achieve defined structures, multiple tiles with different sequences are needed. In this study, we design an RNA tile that can homo-oligomerize into a uniform RNA nanostructure. The designed RNA nanostructure is characterized by gel electrophoresis, atomic force microscopy and cryogenic electron microscopy imaging. We believe that development along this line would help RNA nanotechnology to reach the structural control that is currently associated with DNA nanotechnology.