Bastian Joffroy, Yavuz O. Uca, Domen Prešern, Jonathan P. K. Doye, Thorsten L. Schmidt
Nucleic Acids Res. 2018, DOI:10.1093/nar/gkx1238
Small DNA circles can serve as templates for rolling circle amplification (RCA), which is a common and extremely robust amplification mechanism for nucleic acids. We discovered a strong template length-dependent amplification efficiency bias of RCA with the same periodicity as B-DNA.
Timo Weinrich, Eva A. Jaumann, Ute Scheffer, Thomas F. Prisner, Michael W. Göbel
Chem. Eur. J. 2018, DOI:10.1002/chem.201800167
A photolabile 2-nitrobenzyloxy methyl group can protect nitroxide spin labels against all critical conditions of chemical RNA synthesis and enzymatic strand ligation.
Nayan P. Agarwal, Michael Matthies, Bastian Joffroy, Thorsten L. Schmidt
ACS Nano 2018, DOI:10.1021/acsnano.7b08345
In this work, we have explored the possibility to synthesize the complementary sequences to single-stranded gap regions in the DNA origami scaffold cost effectively by a DNA polymerase rather than by a DNA synthesizer.
L. Anhäuser, F. Muttach, A. Rentmeister
Chem. Commun. 2018, DOI:10.1039/C7CC08300A
Methyltransferases are powerful tools for site-specific transfer of non-natural functional groups from synthetic analogs of their cosubstrate S-adenosyl-L-methionine (AdoMet). We present a new class of AdoMet analogs containing photo-caging (PC) groups in their side chain, enzymatic transfer of PC groups by a promiscuous DNA MTase as well as light-triggered removal from the target DNA. This strategy provides a new avenue to reversibly modulate the functionality of DNA at MTase target sites.
Markus Kramer, Clemens Richert
Chem. Biodiversity 2017, DOI:10.1002/cbdv.201700315 (open access)
Chemical ligation of synthetic oligonucleotides in small origami nanostructures is higher yielding than in linear duplexes.
Nayan P. Agarwal, Michael Matthies, Fatih F. N. Gür, Kensuke Osada, Thorsten L. Schmidt
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, DOI:10.1002/anie.201608873
DNA nanotechnology enables the synthesis of nanometer-sized objects that can be site-specifically functionalized with a large variety of materials. For these reasons, DNA-based devices such as DNA origami are being considered for applications in molecular biology and nanomedicine. However, many DNA structures need a higher ionic strength than that of common cell culture buffers or bodily fluids to maintain their integrity and can be degraded quickly by nucleases. To overcome these deficiencies, we coated several different DNA origami structures with a cationic poly(ethylene glycol)–polylysine block copolymer, which electrostatically covered the DNA nanostructures to form DNA origami polyplex micelles (DOPMs). This straightforward, cost-effective, and robust route to protect DNA-based structures could therefore enable applications in biology and nanomedicine where unprotected DNA origami would be degraded.
