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A Self‐Assembled Rhombohedral DNA Crystal Scaffold with Tunable Cavity Sizes and High‐Resolution Structural Detail
Author(s) -
Simmons Chad R.,
MacCulloch Tara,
Zhang Fei,
Liu Yan,
Stephanopoulos Nicholas,
Yan Hao
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.202005505
Subject(s) - holliday junction , sequence (biology) , crystal (programming language) , crystallography , materials science , crystal structure , dna , molecule , pairing , nanotechnology , chemistry , physics , homologous recombination , computer science , biochemistry , organic chemistry , programming language , superconductivity , quantum mechanics
DNA is an ideal molecule for the construction of 3D crystals with tunable properties owing to its high programmability based on canonical Watson–Crick base pairing, with crystal assembly in all three dimensions facilitated by immobile Holliday junctions and sticky end cohesion. Despite the promise of these systems, only a handful of unique crystal scaffolds have been reported. Herein, we describe a new crystal system with a repeating sequence that mediates the assembly of a 3D scaffold via a series of Holliday junctions linked together with complementary sticky ends. By using an optimized junction sequence, we could determine a high‐resolution (2.7 Å) structure containing R3 crystal symmetry, with a slight subsequent improvement (2.6 Å) using a modified sticky‐end sequence. The immobile Holliday junction sequence allowed us to produce crystals that provided unprecedented atomic detail. In addition, we expanded the crystal cavities by 50 % by adding an additional helical turn between junctions, and we solved the structure to 4.5 Å resolution by molecular replacement.