Issue 36, 2013

Self-assembly of DNA networks at the air–water interface over time

Abstract

This paper introduces the first example of two dimensional (2D) DNA networks that were formed through self-assembly at an air–water interface over time. DNA molecules are highly hydrophilic and have never been reported to exhibit surface activity. Our experimental results confirmed an increase of surface pressure resulting from the formation of a DNA film. We found that upon layer-by-layer Langmuir–Blodgett transformation, 2D DNA molecules preferred to stack on the pre-loaded DNA domains rather than occupy the empty areas on the silicon wafers. We also observed that the fluorescence intensity of DNA films continually increased with incubation time, suggesting that DNA molecules may undertake supra-molecular rearrangements to form well-organized networks. We believe that the success in obtaining well-organized and large scaled DNA 2D and 3D templates may greatly simplify the procedure and decrease the cost for DNA nanotechnologies.

Graphical abstract: Self-assembly of DNA networks at the air–water interface over time

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Apr 2013
Accepted
25 Jun 2013
First published
27 Jun 2013

RSC Adv., 2013,3, 16116-16121

Self-assembly of DNA networks at the air–water interface over time

X. Dai, C. Wei, Z. Li, Z. Sun, R. Shen and Y. Zhang, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 16116 DOI: 10.1039/C3RA42099J

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