Renewable DNA Hairpin-Based Logic Circuits

Abstract

Developing intelligent molecular systems for the desired functions is a significant current research topic in the field of nanoscience. Several materials have been explored to construct interesting systems, such as molecular motors, molecular walkers, and Boolean logic circuits. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is one of the most widely used materials as the Watson-Crick base pairing makes it a versatile substrate. A significant achievement in DNA nanoscience has been the construction of large-scale logic circuits. However, most of the prior works have focused on developing the single-use DNA logic circuits. These single-use circuits can perform robust computations. However, the computing material, such as gate strands, cannot be reused to achieve the same (or a different) computation again. Such reusable behavior is essential for applications, such as feedback and sequential logic computation. In this paper, we propose a novel design strategy for building renewable DNA logic circuits. First, we propose a renewable DNA hairpin-based motif and, then, use this motif to implement a Boolean logic gate. Such renewable circuits make the overall sample preparation convenient and straightforward. We believe that our work will serve as a seed for the development of renewable intelligent molecular systems.