Preparation of Symmetrical and Unsymmetrical DNA–Protein Conjugates with DNA as a Molecular Scaffold

Abstract

DNA “dumbbells” (shown schematically) with either the same or different proteins attached to the ends of DNA oligonucleotides were prepared by using the polymerase chain reaction to introduce the points of attachment (Y and W), and imaged by atomic force microscopy. In some cases, the observed values for the distance separation between the two proteins were smaller than the calculated ones, which is most probably due to bending of the scaffold DNA.