What is DNA origami? Why it has become an important tool for research?
DNA nanotechnology, in particular DNA origami, enables the bottom-up self-assembly of micrometre-scale, three-dimensional structures with nanometre-precise features. These structures are customizable in that they can be site-specifically functionalized or constructed to exhibit machine-like or logic-gating behaviour.[1]
Moreover, they can be used as as molecular pegboards for presenting ligands to cells with a full control of their absolute number and nanoscale orientation, allowing to mimic closer the cellular environment through well-controllable increase in the complexity of cell-ligand interactions and to study early cell signaling events.
If you want to know more about DNA origami and their application to cell signaling studies, check the publications below:
1. Seeman NC. Nucleic acid junctions and lattices. J Theor Biol, 1982. doi: 10.1016/0022-5193(82)90002-9
2. Saccà B, Niemeyer CM. DNA Origami: The art of folding DNA. Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed, 2011. doi: 10.1002/anie.201105846
3. Angelin A. et al. Multiscale origami structures as interface for cells. Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed, 2015. doi: 10.1002/anie.201509772