DNA origami inspired by paper origami

Abstract

If you've ever tried paper folding, perhaps you've run into a common challenge: the smaller the project, the harder it is to achieve a sharp fold. This was not an issue for researchers at Seoul National University led by Do-Nyun Kim, who reported in Nature the development of a DNA origami system that can, like regular origami, be folded into a panoply of shapes (2023, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06181-7 ). The researchers synthesized this origami "paper," a self-assembling DNA scaffold about 240 nm to a side, from four monomeric tiles. Each tile has what the researchers call a handle, two stretches of DNA (pink and yellow markings) on either side of a desired crease (dashed lines). They next added "glue" DNA molecules that can bind by base pairing to both halves of a handle, bringing them together and forcing the scaffold molecule to crease into a new configuration. The researchers confirmed successful