DNA tile self-assembly driven by antibody-mediated four-way branch migration

Abstract

With the rapid development of DNA nanotechnology, the reasonable construction and precise control of complex DNA nanostructures have become active research areas. The continuous breakthroughs in the field of dynamic DNA nanotechnology have provided a number of innovative ideas and techniques for building programmable DNA nanostructures. In this study, we report a mechanism of antibody-mediated four-way branch migration. This mechanism utilizes an antibody, which has the property of specifically binding to an antigen, as the input to the DNA molecular system, promoting four-way branch migration by activating toehold domains. The antibody-mediated four-way branch migration mechanism is then used for the assembly of DNA tiles. Specifically, the tiles are attached to the ends of the four-way branch, and the two tiles are connected by four-way branch migration. Experiments demonstrate the feasibility of this assembly strategy. Our study provides a novel idea for realizing the assembly of nanostructures, simply by attaching structures such as tiles, proteins, quantum dots, etc. to the ends of the four-way branches. It also provides more possibilities for the development of future medical detection.