Multivalent Traptavidin-DNA Conjugates for the Programmable Assembly of Nanostructures

Here, we explore the extended utility of two important functional biomolecules, DNA and protein, by hybridizing them through avidin-biotin conjugation. We report a simple yet scalable technique of successive magnetic separations to synthesize traptavidin-DNA conjugates with four distinct DNA binding sites that can be used as a supramolecular building block for programmable assembly of nanostructures. Using this nanoassembly platform, we fabricate several different plasmonic nanostructures with various metallic as well as semiconductor nanoparticles in predetermined ways. We also use the platform to construct dendrimer nanostructures using valency-controlled traptavidin-DNA conjugates in a programmable manner. These results suggest that our protein-DNA supramolecular building blocks would make a significant contribution to the assembly of multicomponent and complex nanostructures for numerous contemporary and future applications from molecular imaging to drug delivery.