Programming molecular topologies from single-stranded nucleic acids.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30389935.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-07039-7 and PMC identifier 6214983.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Molecular knots represent one of the most extraordinary topological structures in biological polymers. Creating highly knotted nanostructures with well-defined and sophisticated geometries and topologies remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate a general strategy to design and construct highly knotted nucleic acid nanostructures, each weaved from a single-stranded DNA or RNA chain by hierarchical folding in a prescribed order. Sets of DNA and RNA knots of two- or three-dimensional shapes have been designed and constructed (ranging from 1700 to 7500 nucleotides), and they exhibit complex topological features, with high crossing numbers (from 9 up to 57). These single-stranded DNA/RNA knots can be replicated and amplified enzymatically in vitro and in vivo. This work establishes a general platform for constructing nucleic acid nanostructures with complex molecular topologies.
Medical subject headings
- Nucleic Acid Conformation
- Nucleic Acids