Artificial DNA Lattice Fabrication by Non-Complementarity and Geometrical Incompatibility

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for fabricating DNA nanostructures using non-complementary and geometrically incompatible oligonucleotides, challenging traditional rules of DNA self-assembly.

Contribution

It presents a new fabrication scheme that allows DNA lattice formation beyond conventional Watson-Crick base pairing and geometric compatibility constraints.

Findings

Quantitative analysis of DNA lattice sizes confirms occurrence of unfavorable bindings.

The study provides insights into alternative self-assembly mechanisms.

Potential for expanding DNA nanostructure design principles.

Abstract

Fabrication of DNA nanostructures primarily follows two fundamental rules. First, DNA oligonucleotides mutually combine by Watson-Crick base pairing rules between complementary base sequences. Second, the geometrical compatibility of the DNA oligonucleotide must match for lattices to form. Here we present a fabrication scheme of DNA nanostructures with non-complementary and/or geometrically incompatible DNA oligonucleotides, which contradicts conventional DNA structure creation rules. Quantitative analyses of DNA lattice sizes were carried out to verify the unfavorable binding occurrences which correspond to errors in algorithmic self-assembly. Further studies of these types of bindings may shed more light on the exact mechanisms at work in the self-assembly of DNA nanostructures.