Department of Chemical &Biological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 136713, Republic of Korea.
Department of Electrical, Computer &Energy Engineering, Materials Science &Engineering Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
Nat Commun. 2016 Sep 16;7:12873. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12873.
Precise control over the structure of metal nanomaterials is important for developing advanced nanobiotechnology. Assembly methods of nanoparticles into structured blocks have been widely demonstrated recently. However, synthesis of nanocrystals with controlled, three-dimensional structures remains challenging. Here we show a directed crystallization of gold by a single DNA molecular regulator in a sequence-independent manner and its applications in three-dimensional topological controls of crystalline nanostructures. We anchor DNA onto gold nanoseed with various alignments to form gold nanocrystals with defined topologies. Some topologies are asymmetric including pushpin-, star- and biconcave disk-like structures, as well as more complex jellyfish- and flower-like structures. The approach of employing DNA enables the solution-based synthesis of nanocrystals with controlled, three-dimensional structures in a desired direction, and expands the current tools available for designing and synthesizing feature-rich nanomaterials for future translational biotechnology.
精确控制金属纳米材料的结构对于开发先进的纳米生物技术至关重要。最近已经广泛展示了将纳米粒子组装成结构化块的方法。然而，具有可控三维结构的纳米晶体的合成仍然具有挑战性。在这里，我们以一种序列非依赖性的方式展示了通过单个 DNA 分子调节剂对金的定向结晶及其在晶体纳米结构的三维拓扑控制中的应用。我们将 DNA 固定在金纳米种子上，形成具有确定拓扑结构的金纳米晶体。有些拓扑结构是不对称的，包括大头钉状、星形和双凹盘状结构，以及更复杂的水母状和花状结构。这种采用 DNA 的方法能够在所需方向上通过溶液法合成具有可控三维结构的纳米晶体，并扩展了当前用于设计和合成具有丰富特征的纳米材料的工具，以用于未来的转化生物技术。
