DNA Origami Nanostructures - DNA Nanotechnology: From Structure to Function - page 201

and higher complexity were always the challenges for this tile-based fabrication
strategy. In addition, the design of tiles follows strict sequence optimization rules,
and the strands used for tile preparation should be highly purified and precisely
equimolar.
While the conventional tile-based DNA nanotechnology met bottleneck, a new
milestone work appeared in 2006 [ 8 ]. In that original paper, Paul Rothemund called
the new technique as DNA origami technique. Till now, this strategy has attracted
great attentions in the world. We witnessed a rapid growth of publications on this
topic. In this chapter, we will focus on the evolution of DNA origami technique from
a structural point of view. The functional evolution of DNA origami, however, will
be sorted out elsewhere in this topic.

10.2 Invention of DNA Origami

In 2006, the invention of DNA origami [ 8 ] by Rothemund greatly increased the
complexity and size of man-made DNA nanostructures as well as largely simplified
the design and preparation processes. Inspired from the same name Japanese paper-
folding art, Rothemund used term “origami” to describe this new milestone strategy.
In brief, DNA origami involves raster filling the desired shape with a long single-
stranded scaffold with the help of hundreds of short oligonucleotides, called staple
strands, to hold the scaffold in place (Fig. 10.1 a) [ 9 ]. Periodic crossovers are

Fig. 10.1 DNA origami technique invented by Paul Rothemund. ( a ) The design principle of DNA
origami nanostructure using smiley as an example (Reprinted with permission from Macmillan
Publishers Ltd: Ref. [ 9 ], copyright 2010). ( b ) Some DNA origami nanostructures (Reprinted with
permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Ref. [ 8 ], copyright 2006)