UC San Diego

DNA self-assembly has been explored as an effective approach for nanoconstruction. And Hermann’s group have reported to build a novel nanostructure incorporating L-shape RNA which guided by DNA strands to self-assemble into a hybrid RNA-DNA branched motifs. AP site, as a common lesion in DNA, has been demonstrated to be a good target position to interact with small molecular ligands like ATMND.

This project introduced ATMND and designed derivatives of it to the hybrid nanostructures built by Hermann’s group and detected different selectivity and affinity to different bases opposite AP site. This work demonstrated the feasibility to combine RNA, DNA and small molecules to construct new self-assembled nanostructures and provided a rational pathway to modify and functionalize nano materials.