Nanoconstruction with Curved DNA

A breakthrough in DNA origami creates twisted and curved shapes to order.

DNA nanotechnology uses the unique physical properties of DNA molecules to design and create nanoscale structures, with the hope of one day creating tiny machines that work together just like the parts of a cell. But one of the challenges of the field is to find ways to design and engineer DNA structures with high precision. A recent study published in Science marks a breakthrough in researchers' ability to shape DNA; it describes a way to build three-dimensional DNA shapes with elaborate twists and curves with unprecedented precision, developed by scientists at Harvard and the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

Fixed gear: A new method for designing three-dimensional shapes from DNA makes it possible to create curved parts, including this nanoscale "gear" with twelve teeth. Credit: Hendrik Dietz/Science

Hao Yan, a biochemistry professor at Arizona State University who was not involved in the study, says that the work adds a key level of control over previous methods. "I think we can say that it is possible to create any kind of architecture using DNA," he says.

A key advantage of using DNA as a construction material is that it is programmable. DNA molecules consist of strings of linked nucleotide bases of four types: A, T, G, and C. These bases stick to the bases on another DNA strand following a simple rule: A pairs with T, and C pairs with G. By creating DNA sequences with complementary bases on different strands, it is therefore possible to design DNA molecules that self-assemble into certain shapes according to predictable rules.

Previous work used a method called "DNA origami" to design two-dimensional shapes from DNA; further studies have built upon this approach to create shapes in three dimensions. DNA origami uses one very long strand of DNA, called the scaffold, and hundreds of shorter strands, called staples. The staples bind to the scaffold at certain sites based on their sequence, pinching the scaffold and forcing it to double back many times over to create a sheet in a particular shape.

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The Science study extends work by the same team of researchers, adapting the DNA origami method to create more-complex three-dimensional shapes. Previously, the team designed DNA to form helices bundled by cross-linked staple strands in a honeycomb-like lattice. In the current study, the researchers introduced bends and twists into these shapes by adding or deleting bases at certain points in the scaffold, changing the local forces that the helices exert on one another and forcing the entire structure to curve to the right or left. They found that they could control the degree of curvature with a great deal of precision, achieving sharp bends similar to those of the tightly wound DNA found in cells.

The researchers created objects including nanoscale "gears," a wireframe beach ball-shaped capsule, and triangles with either concave or convex sides. Shawn Douglas, a co-author at Harvard University, developed a publicly available computer-aided design program that can serve as a visual interface for designing the DNA shapes.