Size-controllable DNA nanoribbons assembled from three types of reusable brick single-strand DNA tiles

Precise control of nanostructure is a significant goal shared by supramolecular chemistry, nanotechnology and materials science. In DNA nanotechnology, methods of constructing desired DNA nanostructures using programmable DNA strands have been studied extensively and have become a promising branch of research, but developing universal and low-cost (in the sense of using fewer types of DNA strands) methods remains a challenge. In this work, we propose a novel approach to assemble size-controllable DNA nanoribbons with three types of reusable brick SSTs (single-stranded DNA tiles), where the control of ribbon size is achieved by regulating the concentration ratio between manipulative strands and packed single-stranded DNA tiles. In our method, three types of brick SSTs are sufficient in assembling DNA nanoribbons of different sizes, which is much less than the number of types of unique tile-programmable assembling strategy, thus achieving a universal and low-cost method. The assembled DNA nanoribbons are observed and analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Experimental observations strongly suggest the feasibility and reliability of our method.