Biomolecular architecture for nanotechnology

Abstract

This chapter reviews the design principles of biomolecular architecture with applications in nanotechnology and presents examples of zero-, one-, two-, and three-dimensional patterns of inorganicmaterials assembled on biological scaffolds. The use of nanoscale inorganic scaffolds for biomolecules is briefly discussed. Electronic nanoscale components separated by nanosized distances, which eventually lead to faster computation, require new technologies. One possible solution to the new generation of nanotechnologies involves the use of biological molecules, and in particular DNA, as scaffolds for electronic circuits. The advantages of DNA scaffolds are the self-assembly process and the specificity of A-T and G-C hydrogen-bonding interactions, as well as our present ability to synthesize and amplify any desired DNA sequence. In addition, the nanostructures constructed from DNA scaffolds are physicochemically stable, which means that they can be stored and processed under environmental conditions that do not need to be especially restrictive to avoid decomposition. The processing of DNA material can be performed with atomic precision by highly specific enzymes. Because of the relevance of DNA architecture to nanotechnology, many reviews exist on this subject (see, e.g., Seeman 1998; Feldkamp and Niemeyer 2006; Jaeger and Chworos 2006; Lin et al. 2009). We only focus here on specific examples of DNA-based fabrication of inorganic nanoparticle arrays or devices with applications in nanotechnology [see also (Li et al. 2009) for a recent review]. In most cases, nanotechnology-related scaffolding relies on the possibility of attaching chemical groups at certain positions, on which properly functionalized inorganic molecules bind in a subsequent process. DNA-based nanotechnology is a bottom-up self-assembly approach that follows a different strategy compared to inorganic self-assembly: nonequilibrium processes direct the assembly in biological structures, whereas equilibrium-regulated processes are commonly employed in artificial inorganic structures. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.