DNA Structural Bio-Nanotechnology

Abstract

DNA is very attractive as bio-nanomaterials, since it is chemically stable, biocompatible, less toxic, environmentally friendly and easy to synthesize. In addition, the discovery of metal-mediated base pairs, such as T-Hg（II）-T and C-A（gI）-C, has inspired scientists to develop several nanodevices including heavy metal sensor and trapping beads. Recently, we have successfully developed a silver-DNA hybrid nanowire composed only of silver-mediated base pairs, in which Ag（I）make uninterrupted one-dimensional array along the DNA helical axis. In addition, its structure was solved by high-resolution X-ray crystallography. In this article, I present a variety of complicated and beautiful DNA structures and discuss the future outlook of “DNA structural bio-nanotechnology”.