Dynamic Control of Nucleic Acids Self-Assembly and Expression Using Photoswitches

Synthetic nucleic acids have become readily available and now constitute versatile building blocks in materials science-where they can be used to engineer DNA origami-and biotechnologies, where they act as bioactive entities. It has therefore become of interest to develop chemical approaches enabling an external control over their function. In this line, photoswitches have attracted a strong interest since light is a benign stimulus which can be applied with spatio-temporal precision. In this review, we showcase the recent evolution in the design of photoswitches with improved performances, and highlight selected applications of their combination with nucleic acids.