title: Construction and characterization of kilobasepair densely labeled peptide-DNA.
abstract: Directed assembly of biocompatible materials benefits from modular building blocks in which structural organization is independent of introduced functional modifications. For soft materials, such modifications have been limited. Here, long DNA is successfully functionalized with dense decoration by peptides. Following introduction of alkyne-modified nucleotides into kilobasepair DNA, measurements of persistence length show that DNA mechanics are unaltered by the dense incorporation of alkynes (∼1 alkyne/2 bp) and after click-chemistry attachment of a tunable density of peptides. Proteolytic cleavage of densely tethered peptides (∼1 peptide/3 bp) demonstrates addressability of the functional groups, showing that this accessible approach to creating hybrid structures can maintain orthogonality between backbone mechanics and overlaid function. The synthesis and characterization of these hybrid constructs establishes the groundwork for their implementation in future applications, such as building blocks in modular approaches to a range of problems in synthetic biology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University , 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada.
authors.forename: Suzana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kovacic
authors.forename: Laleh
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Samii
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lamour
authors.forename: Hongbin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Heiner
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Linke
authors.forename: Elizabeth H C
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Bromley
authors.forename: Derek N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Woolfson
authors.forename: Paul M G
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Curmi
authors.forename: Nancy R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Forde
mesh_terms: D020029:Base Pairing; D057930:Click Chemistry / Q000379:methods; D004247:DNA / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000138:chemical synthesis*
chemical_list: D010446:Peptide Fragments; D004247:DNA