Heteromeric guanosine (G)-quadruplex derived antenna modules with directional energy transfer

Abstract

A heteromeric guanosine (G)-quadruplex centered self-assembly approach is developed to prepare compact light-harvesting antenna modules featuring multiple donor dyes and a single toehold region. Due to the mix-and-match nature of our approach, the number and placement of donor dyes can be readily fine-tuned via quadruplex assembly. Moreover, hybridization of the toehold with an acceptor containing sequence results in directional energy transfer ensembles with effective absorption coefficients in the 10⁵ M⁻¹ cm⁻¹ range. These compact antennas exhibit system efficiencies that are comparable to much larger and elaborate DNA architectures containing numerous DNA strands.