Abstract
DNA nanostructures are among the most fascinating self-assembled nanostructures in diverse areas of science and technology, because of their nanoscale precision in biomolecule and nanoparticle organization. The implementation of dynamic and spatial regulation in structural morphology and hierarchical assembly upon specific external stimuli will greatly expand their applications in biocomputation, clinical diagnosis, and cancer therapy. Recently, noncanonical nucleic acids, particularly DNA triplexes, i-motifs, and G-quadruplexes, have become powerful tools for biosensing and mechanical switching. Developments in incorporating stimuli-responsive noncanonical nucleic acids into DNA nanostructures provide a promising approach to regulating the spatial organization and hierarchical assembly of DNA nanostructures. In this review, we briefly introduce recent progress in constructing DNA nanostructures with dynamic regulation of the structural transformation and programmable assembly pathways at the nanometer scale by noncanonical nucleic acids and discuss their potential applications and challenges.
Highlights
Introduction Since NardaranSeeman first constructed artificial DNA nanostructures in the 1980s1, well-defined nanoscale DNA architectures have been designed and fabricated, including cubes[2], tetrahedrons[3], polyhedra[4], DNA origami[5,6], and spherical nucleic acids (SNAs)[7] (Fig. 1a)
We focus on new progress in utilizing noncanonical nucleic acids to dynamically regulate the structural reconfiguration and hierarchical assembly of artificial DNA nanostructures, which hold wider implications for expanding and regulating the functionalities of materials beyond nucleic acids
The past few years have seen the intriguing interweaving of noncanonical nucleic acids with artificial DNA architectures
Summary
G-quadruplexes are formed by alkali-metal-assisted stacking of guanine (G) tetrads held by Hoogsteen base pairs, while i-motifs adopt cytosine (C)–cytosinium (CH+) base pairs resulting from the protonation of N-3 on cytosine. The difference in their structural formation requirements from their duplex counterparts brings about novel capacity in manipulating DNA nanostructures in many ways that would not have been possible by using solely DNA duplexes. We focus on new progress in utilizing noncanonical nucleic acids to dynamically regulate the structural reconfiguration and hierarchical assembly of artificial DNA nanostructures, which hold wider implications for expanding and regulating the functionalities of materials beyond nucleic acids. We discuss the respective roles and interplay of artificial DNA nanostructures and naturally occurring noncanonical nucleic acids in various applications, including nanosensors, nanomedicine and, nanophononics
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