Tuning the Mechanical Properties of a DNA Hydrogel in Three Phases Based on ATP Aptamer

Hengyuan Liu; Tianyang Cao; Yun Xu; Yuanchen Dong; Dongsheng Liu

doi:10.3390/ijms19061633

Tuning the Mechanical Properties of a DNA Hydrogel in Three Phases Based on ATP Aptamer

Int J Mol Sci. 2018 May 31;19(6):1633. doi: 10.3390/ijms19061633.

Authors

Hengyuan Liu¹, Tianyang Cao², Yun Xu³, Yuanchen Dong⁴, Dongsheng Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. hy-liu14@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
² Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. caoty15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn.
³ Center for Medical Device Evaluation, China Food and Drug Administration, Building 1, Qixiang Road, Beijing 100084, China. xuyun@cmde.org.cn.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. dongyuanchen@outlook.com.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. liudongsheng@tsinghua.edu.cn.

Abstract

By integrating ATP aptamer into the linker DNA, a novel DNA hydrogel was designed, with mechanical properties that could be tuned into three phases. Based on the unique interaction between ATP and its aptamer, the mechanical strength of the hydrogel increased from 204 Pa to 380 Pa after adding ATP. Furthermore, with the addition of the complementary sequence to the ATP aptamer, the mechanical strength could be increased to 570 Pa.

Keywords: DNA hydrogel; DNA nanotechnology; nucleic acid nanotechnology.

MeSH terms

Adenosine Triphosphate* / chemistry
Aptamers, Nucleotide* / chemistry
Circular Dichroism
DNA* / chemistry
DNA, Single-Stranded / chemistry
Hydrogels* / chemistry
Mechanical Phenomena*

Substances

Aptamers, Nucleotide
DNA, Single-Stranded
Hydrogels
Adenosine Triphosphate
DNA