Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
DNA nanotechnology, specifically, is an example of bottom-up molecular self-assembly, in which molecular components spontaneously organize into stable structures; the particular form of these structures is induced by the physical and chemical properties of the components selected by the designers. [19]
Molecular self-assembly is a key concept in supramolecular chemistry. [6] [7] [8] This is because assembly of molecules in such systems is directed through non-covalent interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, pi-stacking interactions, and/or electrostatic) as well as electromagnetic interactions.
Nucleic acid design is central to the fields of DNA nanotechnology and DNA computing. [2] It is necessary because there are many possible sequences of nucleic acid strands that will fold into a given secondary structure , but many of these sequences will have undesired additional interactions which must be avoided.
Carbon forms diamond, for example, which if cheaply available, would be an excellent material for many machines. It has been suggested, notably by K. Eric Drexler , that mechanosynthesis will be fundamental to molecular manufacturing based on nanofactories capable of building macroscopic objects with atomic precision.
DNA nanotechnology has been applied to the related field of DNA computing. DNA tiles can be designed to contain multiple sticky ends with sequences chosen so that they act as Wang tiles . A DX array has been demonstrated whose assembly encodes an XOR operation; this allows the DNA array to implement a cellular automaton which generates a ...
Naturally occurring or biological molecular machines are responsible for vital living processes such as DNA replication and ATP synthesis. Kinesins and ribosomes are examples of molecular machines, and they often take the form of multi-protein complexes. For the last several decades, scientists have attempted, with varying degrees of success ...
The term has also been used to describe the hierarchical assembly of artificial nucleic acid building blocks used in DNA nanotechnology. [3] The quaternary structure of DNA refers to the formation of chromatin. Because the human genome is so large, DNA must be condensed into chromatin, which consists of repeating units known as nucleosomes.
Molecular models are useful in the design of structures for DNA nanotechnology. Here, individual DNA tiles (model at left) self-assemble into a highly ordered DNA 2D-nanogrid (AFM image at right). There are various uses of DNA molecular modeling in Genomics and Biotechnology research applications, from DNA repair to PCR and DNA nanostructures ...