“…molecular nanoconjugates | spherical nucleic acids | oligonucleotides | gene regulation S pherical nucleic acids (SNAs) are polyvalent nanostructures made from particles chemically modified with a dense shell of highly oriented oligonucleotides (1). The first SNAs were made using gold nanoparticle (AuNP) cores (2), but the core compositions explored since then have included a wide variety of inorganic particles [silver (3), quantum dots (4), iron oxide (5), and silica (6)], organic materials [liposomes (7,8), polymers (9), proteins (10), and other macromolecules (11,12)], and hybrid structures [metal−organic frameworks (13) and infinite coordination polymers (14) in general]. In addition, core-less, hollow SNAs consisting of cross-linked oligonucleotides (15) have been developed, which exhibit many of the hallmark properties of the original AuNP structures.…”