ATP-powered molecular recognition to engineer transient multivalency and self-sorting 4D hierarchical systems
Jie Deng, Andreas Walther
Abstract
Biological systems organize multiple hierarchical structures in parallel, and create dynamic assemblies and functions by energy dissipation. In contrast, emerging artificial non-equilibrium self-assembling systems have remained relatively simplistic concerning hierarchical design, and non-equilibrium multi-component systems are uncharted territory. Here we report a modular DNA toolbox allowing to program transient non-equilibrium multicomponent systems across hierarchical length scales by introducing chemically fueled molecular recognition orchestrated by reaction networks of concurrent ATP-powered ligation and cleavage of freely programmable DNA building blocks. Going across hierarchical levels, we demonstrate transient side-chain functionalized nucleic acid polymers, and further introduce the concept of transient cooperative multivalency as a key to bridge length scales to pioneer fuel-driven encapsulation, self-assembly of colloids, and non-equilibrium transient narcissistic colloidal self-sorting on a systems level. The fully programmable and functionalizable DNA components pave the way to design chemically fueled 4D (3 space, 1 time) molecular multicomponent systems and autonomous materials.