Dynamic Self-Assembly of Nucleic Acid Nanotubes

Hari Subramanian, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher, UC Riverside

Biological systems reconfigure their shape at the level of single cells, tissues, and organs, in response to external stimuli for a variety of purposes such as growth, development, and self-repair. No man-made material has comparable adaptation properties. An attractive route towards such smart materials is offered by nucleic acid  nanotechnology:  logic  and  dynamic  circuits  and  a  variety  of  nanostructures  have  been  successfully demonstrated, and they have the capacity to operate together. Our goal is to build a new class of responsive biomaterials where assembly and disassembly of nanostructures is dynamically directed by nucleic acid inputs and circuits, mimicking the cellular organization with programmable components.

Here,  we  present  our  results  in  controlling  assembly  and  breakage  of  DNA  nanotubes  built  from self-assembling DNA based nanostructural motifs known as ‘double cross-over tiles’. Our design makes it possible to control growth and breakage of the nanotubes reversibly and isothermally using input DNA strands as  triggers.  Control  of  assembly  is  also  achieved  using  RNA  transcripts  of  synthetic  gene  circuits.  We additionally present preliminary data on RNA nanotube system built with similar features. Our results are relevant for the development of responsive biomaterials, active drug delivery systems, and dynamic control of intra-cellular organization.

Hari is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Prof. Elisa Franco’s lab at Mechanical Engineering Department, UC-Riverside.  In  2003  he completed  a    Bachelor’s  degree  in  Chemical  Engineering  from  University  of Kerala, India.  In 2011 he completed a PhD in Biomolecular Chemistry under Prof. Nadrian Seeman at New York  University.  His  PhD  research  was  on  developing  a  novel  nanotechnology  platform  for  medical diagnostic   purposes. From 2011 to 2013,  Hari was a postdoctoral researcher at Prof. Thomas Tullius’ lab in Dept. of Chemistry at Boston University. There he worked on mapping genome wide DNA damage caused by gamma radiation.