Robust nucleation control via crisscross polymerization of highly coordinated DNA slats.

ABSTRACT: Natural biomolecular assemblies such as actin filaments or microtubules can exhibit all-or-nothing polymerization in a kinetically controlled fashion. The kinetic barrier to spontaneous nucleation arises in part from positive cooperativity deriving from joint-neighbor capture, where stable capture of incoming monomers requires straddling multiple subunits on a filament end. For programmable DNA self-assembly, it is likewise desirable to suppress spontaneous nucleation to enable powerful capabilities such as all-or-nothing assembly of nanostructures larger than a single DNA origami, ultrasensitive detection, and more robust algorithmic assembly. However, existing DNA assemblies use monomers with low coordination numbers that present an effective kinetic barrier only for slow, near-reversibl

SUBMITTER: Minev D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7979912 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature