Acoustically seeded fabrication of a DNA tesseract into a conductive wire

Journal article

Assembly of DNA nanostructures to sub-millimetre scales is expected to have significant potential for applications in materials science and medicine. One approach to control nanostructure growth is through using acoustic waves to create pressure nodes for clustering. Here, we report a facet-based underlying DNA nanostructure architecture with structural and stability characteristics ideal for acoustic patterning. The architecture comprises only 16 canonical DNA oligonucleotides which self-assemble to form a nested cube, inspired by the four-dimensional hypercube known as a "tesseract." Cryogenic electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis revealed a fully formed tesseract structure with exceptional stiffness and a melting temperature of 84°C, significantly higher than other unmodified DNA nanostructures. The DNA tesseract nanostructures could be acoustically shaped into wires spanning over 500 µm, observed after deposition onto an interdigitated electrode (IDE). The wires were shown to be electrically conductive, highlighting unique prospects for application. Simplified bottom-up assembly of a small number of oligonucleotides into a relatively complex and structurally stable DNA nanostructure with characteristics ideal for modular assembly holds promise for applications across bioelectronics and other fields.

Authors: Shiu, SC; DeLuca, M; Chui, WH; Zhang, P; Mo, X

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Nucleic Acids Research
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 22
• Pages: gkaf1409
• Publication date: 2025-11-01
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-22
• DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaf1409
• EISSN: 1362-4962
• ISSN: 0305-1048
• Pmid: 41474267
• Language: English
• Keywords: Nanostructures; Microscopy, Atomic Force; DNA; Nucleic Acid Conformation; Cryoelectron Microscopy; Electric Conductivity; Acoustics; Nanotechnology