TY - JOUR
T1 - Solidifying framework nucleic acids with silica
AU - Jing, Xinxin
AU - Zhang, Fei
AU - Pan, Muchen
AU - Dai, Xinpei
AU - Li, Jiang
AU - Wang, Lihua
AU - Liu, Xiaoguo
AU - Yan, Hao
AU - Fan, Chunhai
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 21390414, 21329501, 21603262 and 21675167), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant nos. 2016YFA0201200 and 2016YFA0400900) and the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (grant no. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH031). L.W., C.F. and H.Y. thank the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2016YFA0400900). H.Y. and F.Z. thank the US National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy for financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - Soft matter can serve as a template to guide the growth of inorganic components with well-controlled structural features. However, the limited design space of conventional organic and biomolecular templates restricts the complexity and accuracy of templated growth. In past decades, the blossoming of structural DNA nanotechnology has provided us with a large reservoir of delicate-framework nucleic acids with design precision down to a single base. Here, we describe a DNA origami silicification (DOS) approach for generating complex silica composite nanomaterials. By utilizing modified silica sol–gel chemistry, pre-hydrolyzed silica precursor clusters can be uniformly coated onto the surface of DNA frameworks; thus, user-defined DNA–silica hybrid materials with ~3-nm precision can be achieved. More importantly, this method is applicable to various 1D, 2D and 3D DNA frameworks that range from 10 to >1,000 nm. Compared to pure DNA scaffolds, a tenfold increase in the Young’s modulus (E modulus) of these composites was observed, owing to their soft inner core and solid silica shell. We further demonstrate the use of solidified DNA frameworks to create 3D metal plasmonic devices. This protocol provides a platform for synthesizing inorganic materials with unprecedented complexity and tailored structural properties. The whole protocol takes ~10 d to complete.
AB - Soft matter can serve as a template to guide the growth of inorganic components with well-controlled structural features. However, the limited design space of conventional organic and biomolecular templates restricts the complexity and accuracy of templated growth. In past decades, the blossoming of structural DNA nanotechnology has provided us with a large reservoir of delicate-framework nucleic acids with design precision down to a single base. Here, we describe a DNA origami silicification (DOS) approach for generating complex silica composite nanomaterials. By utilizing modified silica sol–gel chemistry, pre-hydrolyzed silica precursor clusters can be uniformly coated onto the surface of DNA frameworks; thus, user-defined DNA–silica hybrid materials with ~3-nm precision can be achieved. More importantly, this method is applicable to various 1D, 2D and 3D DNA frameworks that range from 10 to >1,000 nm. Compared to pure DNA scaffolds, a tenfold increase in the Young’s modulus (E modulus) of these composites was observed, owing to their soft inner core and solid silica shell. We further demonstrate the use of solidified DNA frameworks to create 3D metal plasmonic devices. This protocol provides a platform for synthesizing inorganic materials with unprecedented complexity and tailored structural properties. The whole protocol takes ~10 d to complete.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41596-019-0184-0
DO - 10.1038/s41596-019-0184-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 31270509
AN - SCOPUS:85068540251
SN - 1754-2189
VL - 14
SP - 2416
EP - 2436
JO - Nature protocols
JF - Nature protocols
IS - 8
ER -