Strategies to Reduce Promoter-Independent Transcription of DNA Nanostructures and Strand Displacement Complexes
Not provided.
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology↗
Engineering topics
Schulman, Rebecca (ORCID:0000000345553162)
Publications and source records attributed to Schulman, Rebecca (ORCID:0000000345553162).
Multi-domain automated patterning of DNA-functionalized hydrogels
DNA-functionalized hydrogels are capable of sensing oligonucleotides, proteins, and small molecules, and specific DNA sequences sensed in the hydrogels’ environment can induce changes in these hydrogels’ shape and fluorescence. Fabricating DNA-functionalized hydrogel architectures with multiple domains could make it possible to sense multiple molecules and undergo more complicated macroscopic changes, such as changing fluorescence or changing the shapes of regions of the hydrogel architecture. However, automatically fabricating multi-domain DNA-functionalized hydrogel architectures, capable of enabling the construction of hydrogel architectures with tens to hundreds of different domains, presents a significant challenge. We describe a platform for fabricating multi-domain DNA-functionalized hydrogels automatically at the micron scale, where reaction and diffusion processes can be coupled to program material behavior. Using this platform, the hydrogels’ material properties, such as shape and fluorescence, can be programmed, and the fabricated hydrogels can sense their environment. DNA-functionalized hydrogel architectures with domain sizes as small as 10 microns and with up to 4 different types of domains can be automatically fabricated using ink volumes as low as 50 μL. We also demonstrate that hydrogels fabricated using this platform exhibit responses similar to those of DNA-functionalized hydrogels fabricated using other methods by demonstrating that DNA sequences can hybridize within them and that they can undergo DNA sequence-induced shape change.
Rubanov, Moshe (ORCID:0000000180507407)↗
Hierarchical assembly and modeling of DNA nanotube networks using Y-shaped DNA origami seeds
Y nanotube architectures are formed from the growth of DNA nanotubes on Y-shaped origami seeds. The resulting Y nanotube architectures are hierarchically assembled into DNA nanotube networks through end-to-end joining of the DNA nanotubes.
Chemistry↗
Feedback regulation of crystal growth by buffering monomer concentration
Abstract Crystallization is a ubiquitous means of self-assembly that can organize matter over length scales orders of magnitude larger than those of the monomer units. Yet crystallization is notoriously difficult to control because it is exquisitely sensitive to monomer concentration, which changes as monomers are depleted during growth. Living cells control crystallization using chemical reaction networks that offset depletion by synthesizing or activating monomers to regulate monomer concentration, stabilizing growth conditions even as depletion rates change, and thus reliably yielding desired products. Using DNA nanotubes as a model system, here we show that coupling a generic reversible bimolecular monomer buffering reaction to a crystallization process leads to reliable growth of large, uniformly sized crystals even when crystal growth rates change over time. Buffering could be applied broadly as a simple means to regulate and sustain batch crystallization and could facilitate the self-assembly of complex, hierarchical synthetic structures.
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗