Nucleic acid-engineered materials
The present invention relates to the design and use of nucleic acid molecules to create novel materials. The present invention further relates to the use of DNA as a bulding block for DNA-materials that are of high yield and purity and that can be incorporated into larger structures.
1. A method of making a three-dimensional nucleic acid structure formed with a trimer comprising:
combining a first, a second, and a third polynucleotide in a solution, wherein at least a portion of the first polynucleotide is complementary to at least a portion of the second polynucleotide, wherein at least a portion of the first polynucleotide is complementary to at least a portion of the third polynucleotide; and wherein at least a portion of the second polynucleotide is complementary to at least a portion of the third polynucleotide; and
maintaining the solution at conditions effective for the first, second, and third polynucleotides to associate together to form a trimer, wherein each polynucleotide comprises a sticky end, wherein the sequence of each sticky end is non-complementary.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said combining comprises the steps of:
combining the first polynucleotide with the second polynucleotide in a solution to form a mixture; and
subsequently combining the third polynucleotide with the first and second polynucleotides in the solution.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each polynucleotide comprises a first region, a second region located 3′ to the first region, and a third region located 3′ to the second region, wherein the second region of the first polynucleotide comprises a region complementary to the third region of the third polynucleotide, the third region of the first polynucleotide comprises a region complementary to the second region of the second polynucleotide, the third region of the second polynucleotide comprises a region complementary to the second region of the third polynucleotide.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the first region of the first, second, and third polynucleotides comprises the sticky end.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first, second, and third polynucleotides are DNA.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is a dendrimer structure.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is anisotropic.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is isotropic.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is a second generation ligation product of a plurality of the trimers.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is a third generation ligation product of a plurality of the trimers.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the structure is a fourth generation ligation product of a plurality of the trimers.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the sticky ends comprised on said trimer is comprised of a different polynucleotide sequence.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the association is of a plurality of the trimers in an all-in-one reaction.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least two sticky ends are non-palindromic.