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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Self-assembly of Complex Two-dimensional Shapes from Single-stranded DNA Tiles
Published on: May 8, 2015
DNA-assisted self-assembly of pyrene foldamers
Robert Häner1, Florent Samain, Vladimir L Malinovskii
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. robert.haener@ioc.unibe.ch
Abstract:
The self-organization of oligopyrene foldamers is described. Bi- and tri-segmental oligomers composed of nucleotides and non-nucleosidic, achiral pyrene monomers form double-stranded helical structures, as shown by absorbance, fluorescence, and CD spectroscopy. The mixed nature of alternating aromatic and phosphate groups ensures water solubility which, in turn, favors folding of the aromatic units. Pyrene molecules also assemble though interstrand stacking interactions. Structural organization of the pyrene units is an intrinsic property of the oligoaryl part and takes place independently from the sequence of the attached DNA. Chirality transfer from DNA to the pyrene segment leads to formation of a double helix, in which neighboring pyrene units are, in the present case, twisted in a right-handed manner. Pyrene helicity is most pronounced in a bi-segmental chimera, in which a DNA stem is present only at one end of the pyrene section.
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