Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (USA).
Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, NY 10003 (USA).
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Aug 17;54(34):9936-9. doi: 10.1002/anie.201503610. Epub 2015 Jul 1.
This manuscript reports an effort to stabilize self-assembled DNA crystals. Owing to their weak inter-unit cohesion, self-assembled DNA crystals are fragile, which limits the potential applications of such crystals. To overcome this problem, another molecule was introduced, which binds to the cohesive sites and stabilizes the inter-unit interactions. The extra interactions greatly improve the stability of the DNA crystals. The original DNA crystals are only stable in solutions of high ionic strength (e.g., ≥1.2 M (NH4)2SO4); in contrast, the stabilized crystals can be stable at ionic strengths as low as that of a 0.02 M solution of (NH4)2SO4. The current strategy is expected to represent a general approach for increasing the stability of self-assembled DNA nanostructures for potential applications, for example, as structural scaffolds and molecular sieves.
本文报道了稳定自组装 DNA 晶体的尝试。由于其单元间结合力较弱，自组装 DNA 晶体很脆弱，这限制了此类晶体的潜在应用。为了克服这个问题，引入了另一种分子，它与结合部位结合并稳定单元间相互作用。额外的相互作用极大地提高了 DNA 晶体的稳定性。原始 DNA 晶体仅在高离子强度的溶液中稳定（例如，≥1.2 M (NH4)2SO4）；相比之下，稳定后的晶体在离子强度低至 0.02 M (NH4)2SO4 溶液中也能稳定存在。该策略有望为提高自组装 DNA 纳米结构的稳定性提供一种通用方法，例如作为结构支架和分子筛。
