Template‐Assisted Self‐Assembly: Alignment, Placement, and Arrangement of Two‐Dimensional Mesostructured DNA–Silica Platelets

Abstract

Highly ordered hierarchical biomolecule-inorganic structures, such as bone, dentine, eggshell, and marine mollusc shells, are ubiquitous in nature. [1] The artificial organization of nature-inspired, biomolecule-templated hierarchical inorganic materials is a key challenge in enabling many nanotechnological applications.[2] "Bottom-up" self-assembly is a widely applied strategy for synthesizing and fabricating ordered hierarchical/multilevel spatial structures or morphologies from components ranging from nanometers to micrometers in size. Alternatively, "top-down" lithographic approaches allow for arbitrary geometrical designs and superior nanometer-level precision, accuracy, and registration. Template-assisted self-assembly (TASA) combines bottom-up self-assembly with top-down patterned templates to eliminate defects and induce registration and orientation in thin-film materials, providing rich opportunities to produce biomimetic multilevel hierarchies. [3] Using TASA, the orientation and periodicity of zerodimensional (0D) spherical block copolymer microdomains, colloid crystals, and metal nanoparticles and 1D metal oxide nanotubes/nanowires were guided into 2D/3D hierarchical spatial architectures. [3a,d, 4] In these systems, the use of biomolecular building blocks has attracted great attention because of their biocompatibility, inherent molecular-recognition properties, and facile use in bottom-up fabrication. Recently, DNA origami-like triangles (with precise banding of gold nanocrystals) were successfully placed and oriented on lithographically patterned surfaces. [5] These systems are the most typical examples of selectively aligning 2D assemblies to date. The successful selective alignment, placement, and arrangement of anisotropic 2D/3D hierarchically mesostructured assemblies with sufficient long-range order, however, have rarely been reported. [6]

Silica Mineralization of DNA‐Inspired 1D and 2D Supramolecular Polymers

“…Che and Shinkai pioneered the field of silicification of nucleic acids. Introducing co‐interacting reagents was a major breakthrough, which led to the various applications, including chiral optical materials . Recently, Grass and co‐workers showed that silica is a perfect environment to preserve nucleic acids for the information storage and biomedical purposes .…”

Enhancement of adaptive biological effects by nanotechnology preparation methods in homeopathic medicines

“…27 (2) Bottom-up methods take advantage of the selforganizing, self-assembly properties of certain nanomaterials such as nano-silica. 95e101 In molecular imprinting, researchers use templates such as viruses, 102 DNA, 103 plant-based constituents such as diosgenin from wild yam, 99 or toxic chemicals such as bisphenol 104,105 anchored onto larger silica surfaces. They then add silica precursors in solution.…”

Funktionsmaterialien mit Cellulose‐basierten Flüssigkristall‐Templaten

“…[8] Die Selbstorganisation von Templaten ermçglicht die Kontrolle über Abmessungen, Periodizität und Struktur und bietet Zugang zu vielen neuen Nanomaterialien. Das Templat selber kann hart, wie Kohlenstoff [9] und Siliciumoxid, [10] sein oder ein weiches Templat, [11] wie Biomoleküle [12] und Polymere. [13] Dabei müssen weiche Template dazu fähig sein, sich zu transferierbaren Überstrukturen zu organisieren.…”