†Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States.
‡Markey Center for Structural Biology and Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States.
J Am Chem Soc. 2015 Apr 8;137(13):4320-3. doi: 10.1021/jacs.5b01196. Epub 2015 Mar 31.
Analogous to the atom-molecule relationship, nanoparticle (NP) clusters (or NP-molecules) with defined compositions and directional bonds could potentially integrate the properties of the component individual NPs, leading to emergent properties. Despite extensive efforts in this direction, no general approach is available for assembly of such NP-molecules. Here we report a general method for building this type of structures by encapsulating NPs into self-assembled DNA polyhedral wireframe nanocages, which serve as guiding agents for further assembly. As a demonstration, a series of NP-molecules have been assembled and validated. Such NP-molecules will, we believe, pave a way to explore new nanomaterials with emergent functions/properties that are related to, but do not belong to the individual component nanoparticles.
类似于原子-分子关系，具有确定组成和定向键的纳米粒子（NP）簇（或 NP 分子）有可能整合组成 NPs 的特性，从而产生新的特性。尽管在这方面进行了广泛的努力，但目前还没有用于组装这种 NP 分子的通用方法。在这里，我们报道了一种通过将 NPs 封装到自组装 DNA 多面体线框纳米笼中的方法来构建这种结构的通用方法，这些纳米笼可用作进一步组装的导向剂。作为一个演示，已经组装和验证了一系列 NP 分子。我们相信，这种 NP 分子将为探索具有新功能/特性的新型纳米材料铺平道路，这些功能/特性与单个组成纳米颗粒有关，但不属于单个组成纳米颗粒。
