A simple and robust DNA nanotriangle that can be conveniently reconfigured by environmental pH changes is demonstrated.rnDNA is an extremely powerful and versatile building material for nanoscience and technology because of the structural rigidity of duplex DNA at the sub-50 nm length scale, and the versatile chemistry and biology that allow functionaliza-tion and manipulation. Its extreme versatility is evident from the construction of a range of novel DNA nanostructures, devices and DNA-based molecular machines and motors. Such novel DNA nanostructures, motors, and devices have a wide range of potential applications in biosensing, nano-electronic devices, and information processing etc. To date, most DNA molecular motors or nanodevices have been powered by DNA fuels, where single-stranded (ss) DNA fuels and anti-fuels are sequentially introduced to power and regenerate the system via a competitive hybridization mechanism. This often leads to a relatively slow operational speed, limited by the rate of the competitive hybridization (strand exchange) reaction, and suffers system poisoning due to incomplete strand exchange. As a result, the performance of such DNA motors gradually degrades after a few cycles, which has been one of the major factors limiting the potential applications of DNA nanomotors.
展开▼
