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Molecular Arrangement and Assembly Guided by Hydrophobic Cavities inside DNA
Author(s) -
Takada Tadao,
Otsuka Yumiko,
Nakamura Mitsunobu,
Yamana Kazushige
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201201469
Subject(s) - dna , molecule , cationic polymerization , hydrophobic effect , dna origami , aqueous solution , chemistry , nanotechnology , static electricity , nanoscopic scale , a dna , planar , chemical physics , biophysics , materials science , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , biochemistry , computer science , physics , biology , computer graphics (images) , quantum mechanics
DNA is a unique yet useful material to organize nanoscale molecular arrays along the helix axis. In this study, we demonstrate a useful approach for creating molecular arrays inside a double helical DNA. Our approach is based on a host–guest system. Introducing abasic sites into DNA afforded a hydrophobic cavity that serves as a host. A planar aromatic molecule (cationic perylenediimide, PDI) was used as the guest molecule. In an aqueous solution, the PDI molecules tend to aggregate with themselves due to the strong hydrophobicity. In the presence of DNA with the cavity, the binding of the PDI was found to site‐specifically occur in the hydrophobic cavity. The unique assembly and arrangement for more than two PDI molecules was achieved by controlling the sizes and positions of the cavities. Our approach would provide a simple and convenient way to construct one‐dimensional aromatic arrays in DNA.