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Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Self-assembly of Complex Two-dimensional Shapes from Single-stranded DNA Tiles
Published on: May 8, 2015
Hierarchical Assembly of DNA Nanostructures Based on Four-Way Toehold-Mediated Strand Displacement
Tong Lin1,2, Jun Yan1, Luvena L Ong3,4
1School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University-Peking University Center for Life Sciences, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology , Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084 , China.
Abstract:
Because of its attractive cost and yield, hierarchical assembly, in which constituent structures of lower hierarchy share a majority of components, is an appealing approach to scale up DNA self-assembly. A few strategies have already been investigated to combine preformed DNA nanostructures. In this study, we present a new hierarchical assembly method based on four-way toehold-mediated strand displacement to facilitate the combination of preformed DNA structural units. Employing such a method, we have constructed a series of higher-order structures composed of 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 preformed units respectively.
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