Allostery of DNA nanostructures controlled by enzymatic modifications

Allostery is comprehensively studied for natural macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. Here, we present controllable allostery of synthetic DNA nanostructure-enzyme systems. Rational designs of the synthetic allosteric systems are based on an in-depth understanding of allosteric sites with several types of strand placements, whose varying stacking strengths determine the local conformation and ultimately lead to a gradient level of allosteric transition. When enzymes in a molecular cloning toolbox such as DNA polymerase, exonuclease and ligase are applied to treat the allosteric sites, the resulting local conformational changes propagate through the entire structure for a global allosteric transition.