Self-assembly of three-dimensional DNA nanostructures and potential biological applications

Nanostructured functional films from engineered repeat proteins

“…In spite of our increased understanding of interactions that govern assemblies in nature, in the laboratory, there is still a challenge to make controlled assemblies that span scales over several orders of magnitude. Self-assembling materials based on peptides, proteins and nucleic acids have recently been explored [2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In this work, we focus on protein materials because proteins provide a large repertoire of interactions and chemical reactivities that can in turn provide function to the materials [15].…”

Nanotubes for tissue engineering

“…Efforts are aimed at controlling chirality, stability, geometry and tubal length. The third approach can incorporate nanoparticles that can dictate the arrangement of the nanotubes and form stacked rings, single spirals, double spirals and nested spirals (Lo et al ., 2010).…”

δ-Free FoF1-ATPase, Nanomachine and Biosensor

“…Molecular self-assembly serves as an alternative paradigm for preparing functional nanostructures, is perhaps one of the most intriguing phenomena in the fields of chemistry, materials, and bioscience, as well as is characterized by spontaneous diffusion and specific association of molecules dictated by non-covalent interactions. There are numerous recent examples involving different molecular entities: organic molecules, proteins, peptides, DNA and molecular motors (Kumar et al, 2011;Lo et al, 2010;Rajagopal & Schneider, 2004;Tao et al, 2009;Yin et al, 2008;Zhao et al, 2010). A current challenge in molecular self-assembly is to achieve controlled organization in three-dimensions, to provide tools for biophysics, molecular sensors, enzymatic cascades, drug delivery, tissue engineering, and device fabrication.…”