Abstract
The creation of nanometre-sized structures that exhibit controllable motions and functions is a critical step towards building nanomachines. Recent developments in the field of DNA nanotechnology have begun to address these goals, demonstrating complex static or dynamic nanostructures made of DNA. Here we have designed and constructed a rhombus-shaped DNA origami ‘nanoactuator' that uses mechanical linkages to copy distance changes induced on one half (‘the driver') to be propagated to the other half (‘the mirror'). By combining this nanoactuator with split enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP), we have constructed a DNA–protein hybrid nanostructure that demonstrates tunable fluorescent behaviours via long-range allosteric regulation. In addition, the nanoactuator can be used as a sensor that responds to specific stimuli, including changes in buffer composition and the presence of restriction enzymes or specific nucleic acids.
Highlights
The creation of nanometre-sized structures that exhibit controllable motions and functions is a critical step towards building nanomachines
The last decade has seen the construction of a large library of complex nanoscale objects built using this approach—a long scaffold strand derived from an M13 viral genome was folded with hundreds of short synthetic staple strands into custom-designed, fully addressable, two- or three-dimensional structures[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. These DNA origami nanostructures can be used as molecular pegboards with nanometre resolution and have been widely employed for the assembly of heteroelements such as proteins[10,11,12], viruses[13] and nanoparticles[14,15,16]
Most DNA origami nanostructures constructed to date have primarily been static objects, a number of dynamic DNA origami structures have been demonstrated with kinematic joints[17], shape complementarity[18] and compliant mechanism designs[19]
Summary
The creation of nanometre-sized structures that exhibit controllable motions and functions is a critical step towards building nanomachines. The last decade has seen the construction of a large library of complex nanoscale objects built using this approach—a long scaffold strand derived from an M13 viral genome was folded with hundreds of short synthetic staple strands into custom-designed, fully addressable, two- or three-dimensional structures[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] These DNA origami nanostructures can be used as molecular pegboards with nanometre resolution and have been widely employed for the assembly of heteroelements such as proteins[10,11,12], viruses[13] and nanoparticles[14,15,16]. We expect our work on the development of a nanometre-sized device with precisely engineered motion will broaden the scope of DNA nanostructures in single-molecule biophysics and biosensing applications
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