Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Design and Synthesis of a Reconfigurable DNA Accordion Rack
Published on: August 15, 2018
Designer Structures Assembled from Modular DNA Superbricks
Xue Li1, Donglei Yang1, Bo Kou2
1Institute of Molecular Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
Abstract:
Self-assembled DNA structures hold great application potentials in many fields. The DNA structure of a specific feature, however, generally requires a distinct set of DNA strands with unique sequences, which is costly and error-prone. Herein, we expanded the modularity of DNA bricks to assemble a number of DNA structures including objects and lattices from the same set of DNA strands. We designed DNA superbricks composed of ∼200 conventional DNA bricks of 52 nucleotides. By modularly programming the sticky interactions between DNA superbricks, we have successfully assembled seven DNA structures of designer features including DNA objects and one-dimensional and two-dimensional DNA brick lattices.
Related Concept Videos
Brick Sizes
Modular bricks are the most common type and are sized to include the mortar joint, which is essential for...
Bricks
Soft mud bricks are shaped in molds with high moisture content and can be...
DNA as a Genetic Template
Brick Classifications
Synthetic Biology
Golden rice
Golden rice is a genetically modified...
Protein Complexes with Interchangeable Parts
The SCF ubiquitin ligase is a protein complex of five individual proteins. This complex attaches ubiquitin to other target proteins to mark them for degradation. In order...

