Unknotted strand routings of triangulated meshes

Abstract

In molecular self-assembly such as DNA origami, a circular strand’s topological routing determines the feasibility of a design to assemble to a target. In this regard, the Chinese-postman DNA scaffold routings of Benson et al. (2015) only ensure the unknottedness of the scaffold strand for triangulated topological spheres. In this paper, we present a cubic-time (formula presented) approximation algorithm to compute unknotted Chinese-postman scaffold routings on triangulated orientable surfaces of higher genus. Our algorithm guarantees every edge is routed at most twice, hence permitting low-packed designs suitable for physiological conditions.