Rare form: Novel structures built from DNA emerge
Arizona State University
F) fishnet pattern G) flower and bird design The completed nanostructures are seen in the accompanying atomic force microscopy images. In the current study, complex nano-forms displaying arbitrary wireframe architectures have been created, using a new set of design rules. The technique of DNA origami capitalizes on the simple base-pairing properties of DNA, a molecule built from the four nucleotides Adenine (A), Thymine (T) Cytosine (C) and (Guanine). Three such patterns were made, including a star shape, a 5-fold Penrose tile and an 8-fold quasicrystalline pattern. The new design rules were next tested with the assembly of increasingly complex nanostructures, involving vertices ranging from 2 to 10 arms, with many different angles and curvatures involved, including a complex pattern of birds and flowers.