A DNA Nanostructure for the Functional Assembly of Chemical Groups with Tunable Stoichiometry and Defined Nanoscale Geometry†
Funded by the Austrian Science Foundation (project N00104-NAN), the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE), and the government of Upper Austria. N.M. holds a PhD studentship from the Department of Chemistry, UCL and a scholarship from the Postgraduate School, UCL. We thank Hugh Martin for the preparation of Figure 1 a and 1c.
Graphical Abstract
Many legs make light work: Tetrahedra are constructed with edges of double-stranded DNA and vertices tagged with biotin or disulfide units (see picture). They can act as supramolecular scaffolds to combine different chemical groups at defined nanoscale distances and with tunable stoichiometries. The disulfide groups bind to gold surfaces with high affinity, which leaves the biotin unit poised to capture streptavidin.
