Programmable self-assembly of three-dimensional nanostructures from 10,000 unique components

DNA self-assembly is widely used to produce nanoscale structures of ever increasing complexity. The largest structures that can be assembled reliably contain hundreds of individual DNA strands. Peng Yin and colleagues now show that a new generation of DNA bricks—short DNA strands that fold into brick-like shapes and self-assemble according to specific inter-brick interactions—makes it possible to assemble large DNA nanostructures containing a few tens of thousands of individual bricks. One structure, consisting of 10,000 bricks and having 20,000 uniquely addressable 'nano-voxels'—the three-dimensional equivalents of pixels—is used as a molecular analogue of clay to sculpt three-dimensional objects such as letters, a complex helicoid (a shape similar to a spiral staircase) and a teddy bear. With further optimization, the method might produce even larger assemblies that could find use as scaffolds or for positioning functional components. Three related papers is this issue report further advances in DNA origami, and all four are summarized in a News & Views.