A proximity-based programmable DNA nanoscale assembly line.

ABSTRACT: Our ability to synthesize nanometre-scale chemical species, such as nanoparticles with desired shapes and compositions, offers the exciting prospect of generating new functional materials and devices by combining them in a controlled fashion into larger structures. Self-assembly can achieve this task efficiently, but may be subject to thermodynamic and kinetic limitations: reactants, intermediates and products may collide with each other throughout the assembly time course to produce non-target species instead of target species. An alternative approach to nanoscale assembly uses information-containing molecules such as DNA to control interactions and thereby minimize unwanted cross-talk between different components. In principle, this method should allow the stepwise and programmed constru

SUBMITTER: Gu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2872101 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature