DNA origami site-specific arrangement of gold nanoparticles

Abstract

Controlling matter at the nanoscale holds a lot of promise in nanotechnology. The DNA origami is promising if used as a template to design and arrange matter at the nanoscale. We have used the DNA origami approach to engineer staple strands at selected sites for attachment of gold nanoparticles. The covalent attachment of thiol-modi¯ed DNA oligomers was used to functionalize gold nanoparticles These oligomers then hybridize with complementary strands extended on selected staple strands on the DNA origami surface with nanometer precision. Gold nanoparticles of 5 nm diameter were arranged across a DNA origami tube to form a C-shape which has potential use in electronics and plasmonics. Agarose gel electrophoresis, AFM, UV-Vis spectroscopy and TEM were used to characterize the structure