title: Complex reconfiguration of DNA nanostructures.
abstract: Nucleic acids have been used to create diverse synthetic structural and dynamic systems. Toehold-mediated strand displacement has enabled the construction of sophisticated circuits, motors, and molecular computers. Yet it remains challenging to demonstrate complex structural reconfiguration in which a structure changes from a starting shape to another arbitrarily prescribed shape. To address this challenge, we have developed a general structural-reconfiguration method that utilizes the modularly interconnected architecture of single-stranded DNA tile and brick structures. The removal of one component strand reveals a newly exposed toehold on a neighboring strand, thus enabling us to remove regions of connected component strands without the need to modify the strands with predesigned external toeholds. By using this method, we reconfigured a two-dimensional rectangular DNA canvas into diverse prescribed shapes. We also used this method to reconfigure a three-dimensional DNA cuboid.
authors.affiliation: Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115 (USA) http://molecular-systems.net http://yin.hms.harvard.edu; Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 (USA). bryan.wei@wyss.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Bryan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Luvena L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Ong
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Alexander S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Jaffe
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yin
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D049329:Nanostructures; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation
chemical_list: D004247:DNA
keywords: DNA bricks; nanostructures; single-stranded tiles; strand displacement; structural reconfiguration