Poster abstracts
Poster number 51 submitted by Jordan Hartung
Toehold Mediated Shape Transition of Nucleic Acid Nanoparticles
Jordan Hartung, Daniel Miller (Department of Chemistry, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306 ), Nathan McCann, Kheiria Benkato (Department of Chemistry, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306 ), Emil F. Khisamutdinov (Department of Chemistry, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306 )
Abstract:
Development of novel materials possessing structural transformations in response to an external stimuli such as environmental changes (pH, temperature etc.), presence of a particular proteins or short oligonucleotides are of great interest for a variety of applications ranging from medicine to electronics. The dynamic operations of most Nucleic Acid (NA) devices rely on networks of NA strand displacement processes in which an external or stimulus strand displaces a target strand from a DNA or RNA duplex. The rate of strand displacement can be greatly increased by the use of “toeholds,” single-stranded regions of the target complex to which the invading strand can bind to initiate the reaction forming additional base pairs that provide a thermodynamic driving force for transformation. Herein we demonstrate development of highly robust nanoparticle shape transition approach that enables sequential transformatino of DNA polygons from one shape to another. Using gel-shift assay, we demonstrated that transformation is highly effective and occurs at isothermal conditions (37 °C) that can be potentially implemented within living cells as a reporter molecules. The shape transformation was also by atomic force microscopy. This work intended to provide robust approach for the development of stimuli responsive regulatory nano-devices for nucleic acid nanotechnology.
Keywords: Nucleic Acid Nanoparticles, Shape Transition