Saliba Daniel, Luo Xin, Rizzuto Felix J, Sleiman Hanadi F
Department of Chemistry, McGill University, 801 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC, H3A 0B8, Canada.
School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia.
Nanoscale. 2023 Mar 16;15(11):5403-5413. doi: 10.1039/d2nr06185f.
Nanotubes built from DNA hold promise for several biological and materials applications, due to their high aspect ratio and encapsulation potential. A particularly appealing goal is to control the size, shape, and dynamic behaviour of DNA nanotubes with minimal design alteration, as nanostructures of varying morphologies and lengths have been shown to exhibit distinct cellular uptake, encapsulation behaviour, and biodistribution. Herein, we report a systematic investigation, combining experimental and computational design, to modulate the length, flexibility, and longitudinal patterns of wireframe DNA nanotubes. Subtle design changes govern the structure and properties of our nanotubes, which are built from a custom-made, long, and size-defined template strand to which DNA rungs and linkers are attached. Unlike DNA origami, these custom-made strands possess regions with repeating sequences at strategic locations, thereby reducing the number of strands necessary for assembly. Through strand displacement, the nanotubes can be reversibly altered between extended and collapsed morphologies. These design concepts enable fine-tuning of the nanotube stiffness and may pave the way for the development of designer nanotubes for a variety of applications, including the study of cellular internalization, biodistribution, and uptake mechanisms for structures of varied shapes and sizes.
由DNA构建的纳米管因其高纵横比和封装潜力，在多种生物学和材料应用方面具有前景。一个特别吸引人的目标是通过最小的设计改动来控制DNA纳米管的大小、形状和动态行为，因为已表明不同形态和长度的纳米结构表现出不同的细胞摄取、封装行为和生物分布。在此，我们报告了一项结合实验和计算设计的系统研究，以调节线框DNA纳米管的长度、柔韧性和纵向模式。细微的设计变化控制着我们纳米管的结构和性质，这些纳米管由定制的、长的且尺寸确定的模板链构建而成，DNA梯级和连接体附着于该模板链上。与DNA折纸不同，这些定制链在关键位置具有重复序列区域，从而减少了组装所需的链数。通过链置换，纳米管可以在伸展和折叠形态之间可逆地改变。这些设计理念能够对纳米管的刚度进行微调，并可能为开发用于各种应用的定制纳米管铺平道路，包括研究不同形状和大小结构的细胞内化、生物分布和摄取机制。
