TY - JOUR
T1 - A proximity-based programmable DNA nanoscale assembly line
AU - Gu, Hongzhou
AU - Chao, Jie
AU - Xiao, Shou Jun
AU - Seeman, Nadrian C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We are grateful to J. Canary, H. Yan, C. Mao and R. Sha for comments on this manuscript. This research has been supported by the following grants: GM-29544 from the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences, CTS-0608889 and CCF-0726378 from the US National Science Foundation, 48681-EL and W911NF-07-1-0439 from the US Army Research Office, N000140910181 and N000140911118 from the US Office of Naval Research and a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation (to N.C.S.); and 2007CB925101 from the National Basic Research Program of China and 20721002 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (to S.-J.X.). H.G. thanks New York University for a Dissertation Fellowship and J.C. thanks the Chinese Scholarship Council for a research fellowship.
PY - 2010/5/13
Y1 - 2010/5/13
N2 - 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 construction of target products by linking individually selected nanoscale componentsĝ€"much as an automobile is built on an assembly line. Here we demonstrate that a nanoscale assembly line can be realized by the judicious combination of three known DNA-based modules: a DNA origami tile that provides a framework and track for the assembly process, cassettes containing three independently controlled two-state DNA machines that serve as programmable cargo-donating devices and are attached in series to the tile, and a DNA walker that can move on the track from device to device and collect cargo. As the walker traverses the pathway prescribed by the origami tile track, it sequentially encounters the three DNA devices, each of which can be independently switched between an ON state, allowing its cargo to be transferred to the walker, and an OFF state, in which no transfer occurs. We use three different types of gold nanoparticle species as cargo and show that the experimental system does indeed allow the controlled fabrication of the eight different products that can be obtained with three two-state devices.
AB - 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 construction of target products by linking individually selected nanoscale componentsĝ€"much as an automobile is built on an assembly line. Here we demonstrate that a nanoscale assembly line can be realized by the judicious combination of three known DNA-based modules: a DNA origami tile that provides a framework and track for the assembly process, cassettes containing three independently controlled two-state DNA machines that serve as programmable cargo-donating devices and are attached in series to the tile, and a DNA walker that can move on the track from device to device and collect cargo. As the walker traverses the pathway prescribed by the origami tile track, it sequentially encounters the three DNA devices, each of which can be independently switched between an ON state, allowing its cargo to be transferred to the walker, and an OFF state, in which no transfer occurs. We use three different types of gold nanoparticle species as cargo and show that the experimental system does indeed allow the controlled fabrication of the eight different products that can be obtained with three two-state devices.
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U2 - 10.1038/nature09026
DO - 10.1038/nature09026
M3 - Article
C2 - 20463734
AN - SCOPUS:77952404245
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 465
SP - 202
EP - 205
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7295
ER -