Enhancing the speed of DNA walkers through soft confinement.

ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades, dynamic DNA origami structures have emerged as promising candidates for nanoscale signal and cargo transport. DNA walkers, programmable nanostructures that traverse tracks made of DNA, represent a key innovation in this field, enabling controlled and directional movement at the nanoscale. Despite relatively fast diffusion rates, the speed of DNA walkers remains constrained by the reaction-limited nature of strand exchange mechanisms, which depend both on the foothold-walker affinity and on the probability of the molecules being found close enough to bind. In this study, we explore how spatial confinement can expedite walker motion and evaluate two strategies to achieve this: the introduction of tailed DNA footholds, promoting pseudo-rotational dynamics, and the a

SUBMITTER: Ogieva MO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11923261 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature