A bioinspired design principle for DNA nanomotors: Mechanics-mediated symmetry breaking and experimental demonstration

•Propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to implement DNA nanomotors beyond the burn-the-bridge methods.•Experimentally validate a previously proposed concept of mechanics-mediated symmetry breaking.•Suggests a viable route to develop mechanistically advanced biomimetic nanomotors. DNA nanot...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMethods (San Diego, Calif.) Vol. 67; no. 2; pp. 227 - 233
Main Authors Cheng, Juan, Sreelatha, Sarangapani, Loh, Iong Ying, Liu, Meihan, Wang, Zhisong
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Elsevier Inc 15.05.2014
Subjects
Azobenzene
DNA - chemistry
DNA nanotechnology
Molecular motor
Nanostructures - chemistry
Nanotechnology
Nucleic Acid Conformation
Thermodynamics
DNA nanotechnology
Molecular motor
Azobenzene
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Summary:•Propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to implement DNA nanomotors beyond the burn-the-bridge methods.•Experimentally validate a previously proposed concept of mechanics-mediated symmetry breaking.•Suggests a viable route to develop mechanistically advanced biomimetic nanomotors. DNA nanotechnology is a powerful tool to fabricate nanoscale motors, but the DNA nanomotors to date are largely limited to the simplistic burn-the-bridge design principle that prevents re-use of a fabricated motor-track system and is unseen in biological nanomotors. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to implement a conceptually new design principle by which a symmetric bipedal nanomotor autonomously gains a direction not by damaging the traversed track but by fine-tuning the motor’s size.
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ISSN:1046-2023
1095-9130
DOI:10.1016/j.ymeth.2014.02.029