Skip to content Skip to navigation

Supramolecular Materials by Nucleic Acid Block Copolymer Self-Assembly

Triangle
MRSEC investigators
Zauscher,
Chilkoti , and
Yingling
recently developed a new
, bioinspired method
to synthesize high
molecular weight, single-stranded DNA (ssDNA).[1] This
enzyme-catalyzed
polymerization of
ssDNA is conceptually similar to controlled
polymerization
of synthetic polymers, in which monomers are added to a growing chain one at a
time, and yields polynucleotides with narrow
molecular
weight distributions (
Fig. 1).
They now seek
to leverage this method and develop,
aided by coarse-grained, dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)
simulations,
a
library of copolymer architectures that can self assemble into a broad range of
morphologies. The
ability to synthesize polynucleotides that form complex
nano- to meso-scale
morphologies,
including segregated, incompatible subdomains, or that directly contain nucleic
acid based drugs, has great potential for
bionanotechnology and for
drug
delivery
applications
.

 

Figure
1:

Two-step, enzymatic
polymerization of amphiphilic
polynucleotides using
a template independent TdT polymerase.
Self-assembly
into star-like micelles
shown by DPD simulation and high resolution AFM imaging.