Design, assembly and characterization of highly curved DNA origami structures

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Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Kemian tekniikan korkeakoulu | Master's thesis

Date

2019-01-28

Department

Major/Subject

Biosystems and Biomaterials Engineering

Mcode

CHEM3028

Degree programme

Master’s Programme in Life Science Technologies

Language

en

Pages

47+4

Series

Abstract

DNA origami technique has found application in building nanoscale structures of various complexity and shape, including 3D curvatures with diameters as small as 25 nm, which opens up new venue of research including mimicking cellular components like nuclear pore complex. However, currently there is no concrete guideline available to build such 3D structures and researchers have to rely on an iterative design approach. Moreover, available curvatures in literature were all implemented based on a single type of helix packing, indicating certain difficulty in assemble curvature with the more densely packed square-lattice. In this thesis, a set of principles previously described for curved single-layer structures were adapted for multilayer designs and validated with three structures different in cross-section, torsional rigidity, and dimension. The folding quality and structural integrity of each were characterized with gel electrophoresis and transmission electron microscopy. Comparison among three structures prove the improvement in building curvatures using the proposed principles and suggest the importance of torsional rigidity in designing curvatures. The effort to assemble a square-lattice-based structure meets limited success yet could be improved with further iterations.

Description

Supervisor

Kuzyk, Anton

Thesis advisor

Nguyen, Minh-Kha

Keywords

DNA origami, DNA nanotechnology, DNA curvature, DNA ring

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