Can Asya E, Ali Abdul W U, Oelschlaeger Claude, Willenbacher Norbert, Stoev Iliya D
Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems - Biological Information Processing, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76344, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Macromol Rapid Commun. 2025 May 8:e2500149. doi: 10.1002/marc.202500149.
Sequence-programmable DNA building blocks offer high degree of freedom in designing arbitrarily complex networks of tunable viscoelastic properties. Yet, the deployment of DNA-based functional materials remains limited due to insufficient control over the emerging structures and their mechanics. In an ongoing effort to place structure-property relations in stimuli-responsive DNA materials on a firm foundation, here a systematic rheological study of self-assembling DNA networks is presented, comprised of short DNA nanomotifs, namely trivalent nanostars and bivalent linkers, where the latter differ in their composition on a single base-pair level. Notably, we found through combining conventional bulk rheology with diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS-based) passive microrheology a relationship between the melting temperature of a DNA hydrogel and its DNA sequence composition. By providing a use case, we demonstrated how the determination of such empirical relations could impact the areas of biosensing and mechanical computing, where control over the system state and target identification are key.
序列可编程DNA构建块在设计具有可调粘弹性的任意复杂网络方面提供了高度的自由度。然而，由于对新兴结构及其力学的控制不足，基于DNA的功能材料的应用仍然有限。为了将刺激响应性DNA材料中的结构-性能关系建立在坚实的基础上，本文对由短DNA纳米基序（即三价纳米星和二价连接体）组成的自组装DNA网络进行了系统的流变学研究，其中后者在单个碱基对水平上的组成不同。值得注意的是，我们通过将传统的体流变学与扩散波谱（基于DWS）被动微流变学相结合，发现了DNA水凝胶的熔化温度与其DNA序列组成之间的关系。通过提供一个应用案例，我们展示了确定这种经验关系如何影响生物传感和机械计算领域，在这些领域中，对系统状态的控制和目标识别是关键。
