A new building block for DNA network formation by self-assembly and polymerase chain reaction

• Holger Bußkamp,
• Sascha Keller,
• Marta Robotta,
• Malte Drescher and
• Andreas Marx

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 1037–1046, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.104

• in many nanotechnological approaches. Inspired by naturally existing self-assembled DNA architectures, branched DNA has been developed that allows self-assembly to predesigned architectures with dimensions on the nanometer scale. DNA is an attractive material for generation of nanostructures due to a

• hydrogels. Keywords: AFM; branched DNA; DNA; DNA polymerase; nanotechnology; nucleic acids; PCR; self-assembly; Introduction DNA has found applications in the field of nanotechnology due to its inherent properties. The simplicity and predictability of DNA secondary structure are of outstanding potential

• for the design of self-assembled architectures [1][2][3]. Inspired by naturally existing self-assembled DNA architectures known as Holliday junctions, Seeman envisioned the approach to organize DNA with branched DNA (bDNA) and thereby initiated the field of structural DNA nanotechnology [4]. Since