The Emergence of Complexity: Lessons from DNA

The same molecular qualities that endowed DNA with its capacity to carry hereditary information make it a powerful tool to explore the self-assembly of complex nanostructure

Self‐Assembly of Wireframe DNA Nanostructures from Junction Motifs

Wireframe frameworks have been investigated for the construction of complex nanostructures from a scaffolded DNA origami approach; however, a similar framework is yet to be fully explored in a scaffold‐free “LEGO” approach. Herein, we describe a general design scheme to construct wireframe DNA nanostructures entirely from short synthetic strands. A typical edge of the resulting structures in this study is composed of two parallel duplexes with crossovers on both ends, and three, four, or five edges radiate out from a certain vertex. By using such a self‐assembly scheme, we produced planar lattices and polyhedral objects.Verzweigte Angelegenheit: DNA‐Verzweigungsmotive mit Anordnungen in bestimmten Winkeln wurden entwickelt. Mit ihnen wurden zweidimensionale Drahtgitterstrukturen und dreidimensionale Polyeder konstruiert.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151370/1/ange201906408.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151370/2/ange201906408-sup-0001-misc_information.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151370/3/ange201906408_am.pd

Self‐Assembly of Wireframe DNA Nanostructures from Junction Motifs

Wireframe frameworks have been investigated for the construction of complex nanostructures from a scaffolded DNA origami approach; however, a similar framework is yet to be fully explored in a scaffold‐free “LEGO” approach. Herein, we describe a general design scheme to construct wireframe DNA nanostructures entirely from short synthetic strands. A typical edge of the resulting structures in this study is composed of two parallel duplexes with crossovers on both ends, and three, four, or five edges radiate out from a certain vertex. By using such a self‐assembly scheme, we produced planar lattices and polyhedral objects.Conjunction junction, what’s your function? Junction motifs of specific angle arrangements are designed. 2D wireframe lattices and 3D wireframe polyhedra are constructed accordingly.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151279/1/anie201906408-sup-0001-misc_information.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151279/2/anie201906408_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151279/3/anie201906408.pd

Self-Assembly of a 2D DX Array

<p>Each rod represents a DNA duplex. The geometric complementarity represents the sequence complementarity of sticky ends.</p

Schematic Representation of Self-Assembly of a Sierpinski Triangle Based on XOR Operation

<p>The values in the bottom row are the inputs.</p

Basic DNA Structures for Self-Assembly

<p>(A) A four-arm junction and (B) its three-dimensional structure; (C) a DNA DX; and (D) a DNA TX.</p