The cell membrane is a biological interface regulating the communications between cells and their environment. The ability to functionalize the cell membrane with molecules or nanomaterials allows us to manipulate cellular behaviors and to expand cellular functions. Due to their unique merits of synthetic accessibility, flexible design, and precise programmability, nucleic acids provide an emerging and promising molecular toolkit for cell surface engineering. In this review, the recent progress in nucleic acid-based cell surface engineering are summarized. We first introduce approaches to nucleic acid-based cell surface engineering, including monovalent and polyvalent surface engineering strategies. Then, the biological applications of nucleic acid-based cell surface engineering in biosensing of extracellular microenvironment, programming cell-cell interactions, and mimicking cellular behaviors are reviewed. Finally, we analyze the current challenges existing in this area and discuss the prospects for the future development.
Keywords: DNA nanotechnology; biological applications; biosensing; cell surface engineering; cell surface engineering strategy; cell−cell interactions; nucleic acids.