DNA Gridiron Nanostructures Based on Four-Arm Junctions

TLDR

Nanotechnology faces the challenge of engineering increasingly complex wireframe architectures and scaffolds. The authors propose a design strategy for constructing gridiron‑like DNA nanostructures. The strategy employs distorted four‑arm DNA junctions as vertices in a double‑helical network, enabling a scaffold strand to traverse each vertex in multiple directions. The approach yielded DNA gridirons spanning two‑dimensional reconfigurable arrays, multilayer and three‑dimensional structures, and curved objects.

Abstract

Engineering wireframe architectures and scaffolds of increasing complexity is one of the important challenges in nanotechnology. We present a design strategy to create gridiron-like DNA structures. A series of four-arm junctions are used as vertices within a network of double-helical DNA fragments. Deliberate distortion of the junctions from their most relaxed conformations ensures that a scaffold strand can traverse through individual vertices in multiple directions. DNA gridirons were assembled, ranging from two-dimensional arrays with reconfigurability to multilayer and three-dimensional structures and curved objects.