Self-Replication of DNA Nanotile Patterns @ New York University

Author(s):

T. Wang, R. Sha, R. Dreyfus, M. E. Leunissen, C. Maass, D. J. Pine, P. M. Chaikin, and N. C. Seeman

Self-replication is ubiquitous in the living world but artificial self-replication has been elusive. We have developed a process for self-replication of an arbitrary seed made from nanometer scale DNA tiles. The tiles are constructs of 10 DNA strands which form a bent triple helix, BTX, with four lateral single strands -- ‘sticky ends’ -- for recognition and hybridization with complementary tiles, and six longitudinal sticky ends for joining tiles to form a sequence.