Disassembly of DNA origami dimers controlled by programmable polymerase primers

Abstract

Dynamic regulation of DNA origami nanostructures is important for the fabrication of intelligent DNA nanodevices. Toehold-mediated strand displacement is a common regulation strategy, which utilizes trigger strands to assemble and disassemble nanostructures. Such trigger strands are required to be completely complementary to the corresponding substrate strands, which strictly demands orthogonality and accuracy of the sequence design. Herein, we present a disassembly strategy of DNA origami dimers based on polymerase-triggered strand displacement, where the polymerase primers, as the trigger strands, were only partially complementary to the toehold region of the substrate strands. To demonstrate the programmability of trigger strands, we utilized primers with different sequence combination patterns to disassemble DNA origami dimers. The statistical summary of AFM images and fluorescence curves proved the feasibility of the new strategy. The utilization of polymerase-triggered strand displacement on the disassembly of DNA origami structures enriches the toolbox for the dynamic regulation of DNA nanostructures.