DNA-DNA kissing complexes as a new tool for the assembly of DNA nanostructures.

ABSTRACT: Kissing-loop annealing of nucleic acids occurs in nature in several viruses and in prokaryotic replication, among other circumstances. Nucleobases of two nucleic acid strands (loops) interact with each other, although the two strands cannot wrap around each other completely because of the adjacent double-stranded regions (stems). In this study, we exploited DNA kissing-loop interaction for nanotechnological application. We functionalized the vertices of DNA tetrahedrons with DNA stem-loop sequences. The complementary loop sequence design allowed the hybridization of different tetrahedrons via kissing-loop interaction, which might be further exploited for nanotechnology applications like cargo transport and logical elements. Importantly, we were able to manipulate the stability of those kis

SUBMITTER: Barth A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4770242 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature