Nanotechnology is often defined as the study of materials and devices with features on a scale below 100 nanometers. DNA nanotechnology, specifically, is an example of bottom-up molecular self-assembly, in which molecular components spontaneously organize into stable structures; the particular form of these structures is induced by the physical and chemical properties of the components selected by the designers. In DNA nanotechnology, the component materials are strands of nucleic acids such as DNA; these strands are often synthetic and are almost always used outside the context of a living cell. DNA is well-suited to nanoscale construction because the binding between two nucleic acid strands depends on simple base pairing rules which are well understood, and form the specific nanoscale structure of the nucleic acid double helix. These qualities make the assembly of nucleic acid structures easy to control through nucleic acid design. This property is absent in other materials used in nanotechnology, including proteins, for which protein design is very difficult, and nanoparticles, which lack the capability for specific assembly on their own. DNA nanotechnology is sometimes divided into two overlapping subfields: structural DNA nanotechnology and dynamic DNA nanotechnology. Structural DNA nanotechnology, sometimes abbreviated as SDN, focuses on synthesizing and characterizing nucleic acid complexes and materials that assemble into a static, equilibrium end state. On the other hand, dynamic DNA nanotechnology focuses on complexes with useful non-equilibrium behavior such as the ability to reconfigure based on a chemical or physical stimulus. Some complexes, such as nucleic acid nanomechanical devices, combine features of both the structural and dynamic subfields.
Here you can see an example of DNA nanostructures, showing Self-assembling tensegrity triangle with four turns of DNA per axis (PDB code: 7U3Q)
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #DNA ... #nanotechnology ... #nanostructure .. #triangle ... #xray
Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint
Here you can see an example of DNA nanostructures, showing Self-assembling tensegrity triangle with four turns of DNA per axis (PDB code: 7U3Q)
#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #DNA ... #nanotechnology ... #nanostructure .. #triangle ... #xray
Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint
