DNA‐Guided Assembly of Molecules, Materials, and Cells

Abstract

DNA is the genetic blueprint for most known living organisms on Earth, but it is not merely the secret of life. Because of its programmability derived from Watson-Crick base-pairing, DNA exhibits unparalleled versatility in constructing designer molecular structures by self-assembly-a field called DNA nanotechnology. After decades of active pursuit, DNA has demonstrated unprecedented capability in designing highly prescribed and sophisticated artificial nanostructures, which could be either static, with well-controlled physicochemical properties, or dynamic, with the ability to change in response to external stimuli. Researchers have devoted considerable efforts to exploring the utility of DNA nanotechnology in a variety of fields, with the majority related to harvesting their assembling power, since they are highly capable of guiding the assembly of other entities-molecules, materials, living cells, and so on-to fabricate artificial assemblies with emergent properties and functions. Herein, a brief introduction is given to self-assembly methods in DNA nanotechnology, including DNA tiles, modular DNA bricks, and DNA origami. Four sections are then dedicated to covering the utilization of DNA nanotechnology for guided assembly of organic materials, inorganic materials, biological materials, and living cells. Lastly, DNA-enabled molecular intelligent systems that are able to compute and execute algorithms are discussed.

Programmed Assembly of DNA Templates by Silver Nanowires

“…In the recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to DNA templated assemblies due to their unparalleled selfassembly and programmability properties for the precession guided nanomaterial fabrication. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] For instance, the bottomup DNA-guided assemblies were utilized to integrate several functional electronic materials such as carbon nanotubes, [9][10][11] fullerenes, [12][13] polymers, [14][15][16] metals, [17][18][19] nanoclusters [20][21][22] with various DNA interaction strategies. Moreover, the programmed assembly of DNA was used to construct arbitrary shapes and patterns which intern utilized as higher order template for hierarchical organization of metallized nanowires, nanoarrays and biomaterials.…”

“…Moreover, the programmed assembly of DNA was used to construct arbitrary shapes and patterns which intern utilized as higher order template for hierarchical organization of metallized nanowires, nanoarrays and biomaterials. [23][24][25][26] Until now, it is not difficult to place homogenous materials on a single DNA nanostructure with sub-10 nm precision, given that site-specific modification on the DNA nano-breadboard can be achieved by sequencespecific self-assembly. [27][28][29] For example, Fan and coworkers reported the integration of single wall-carbon nanotube (SWCNT) on 2D DO with absolute precision by modifying the ends of SWCNT with complementary oligonucleotide strands.…”

Reversible Design of Dynamic Assemblies at Small Scales

“…[20,21] Although recent reviews have covered the topic of self-assembly and the use of externally driven forces to drive micro-/ nanoscale assembly, these works do not fully address the concept of reversible design. [22,23] In this direction, herein, we present the latest developments in reversible assembly at small scales. We define reversible design as a guided process capable of reconfiguring assemblies into new structures and the subsequent ability to restore their building blocks to their initial state.…”