Spring-loaded DNA origami arrays as energy-supplied hardware for modular nanorobots.

Abstract

DNA origami nanorobots allow for the rational design of nanomachines that respond to environmental stimuli with preprogrammed tasks. To date, this mostly is achieved by constructing two-state switches that, upon activation, change their conformation, resulting in the performance of an operation. Their applicability is often limited to a single, specific stimulus-output combination because of their intrinsic properties as two-state systems only. This makes expanding them further challenging. Here, we addressed this limitation by introducing reconfigurable DNA origami arrays as networks of coupled two-state systems. This universal design strategy enables the integration of various operational units into any two-state system within the nanorobot, allowing it to process multiple stimuli, compute responses using multilevel Boolean logic, and execute a range of operations with controlled order, timing, and spatial position. We anticipate that this strategy will be instrumental in further developing DNA origami nanorobots for applications in various technological fields.