Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

DNA, well known as the carrier of genetic information in nature, is also an excellent material to generate self-assembling DNA nanostructures due to its unique structural motifs and self-recognition properties. Recently, scaffolded DNA origami has emerged as one of the most striking breakthroughs in structural DNA nanotechnology. This method entails the combination of a long single-stranded circular M13mp18 genomic (M13) DNA with about 250 staple strands to define the shape and patterning of the structure, with a pixelation estimated at about 6 nm. Herein, I will illustrate our efforts to design and self-assemble 2D DNA origami arrays using several different strategies. Specifically, I will introduce the self-assembly of 2D DNA origami lattices using a symmetric cross-like design. This design strategy resulted in a well-ordered woven latticework array with edge dimensions of 2-3 µm. This size is likely large enough to be used as a template to control and organize functionalized nanomaterials for optoelectronic and biomedical applications. I will also demonstrate by nanoparticle labeling and AFM that blunt-ended DNA nanostructures are capable of forming apparently random 1D arrays through intermolecular stacking interactions. Finally, I will show the design and construction of DNA nano-objects for exploring the binding preferences of topoisomerase (topo) II.