posted on 2023-12-23, 04:03authored byAndrea
C. Bardales, Joseph R. Mills, Dmitry M. Kolpashchikov
Accessibility
of synthetic oligonucleotides and the success of
DNA nanotechnology open a possibility to use DNA nanostructures for
building sophisticated enzyme-like catalytic centers. Here we used
a double DNA crossover (DX) tile nanostructure to enhance the rate,
the yield, and the specificity of 5′–5′ ligation
of two oligonucleotides with arbitrary sequences. The ligation product
was isolated via a simple procedure. The same strategy was applied
for the synthesis of 3′–3′ linked oligonucleotides,
thus introducing a synthetic route to DNA and RNA with a switched
orientation that is affordable by a low-resource laboratory. To emphasize
the utility of the ligation products, we synthesized a circular structure
formed from intramolecular complementarity that we named “an
impossible DNA wheel” since it cannot be built from regular
DNA strands by enzymatic reactions. Therefore, DX-tile nanostructures
can open a route to producing useful chemical products that are unattainable
via enzymatic synthesis. This is the first example of the use of DNA
nanostructures as a catalyst. This study advocates for further exploration
of DNA nanotechnology for building enzyme-like reactive systems.