Functional Nucleic Acids for DNA Nanotechnology - DNA Nanotechnology: From Structure to Function - page 22

affinity than the catalytic products. The trajectory of the spiders moving along the
origami track is captured in a series of AFM images over time (Fig. 2.10 d). The rate
of spider movement is estimated to be 90 nm over 30 min, equating to 6 nm per
three parallel cleavage events. The walker is not fast, efficient, or powerful enough
because of the core principle of catalytic reaction of DNAzymes. However, it is
programmable, predictable, and, more importantly, designable that will make these
kinds of walkers have great future potential.

2.4 Conclusion and Perspective

As artificial tools, the versatile functions of FNAs vary from molecule recognition
to reaction catalysis. Without FNAs, though the biochemical modifications could
be exploited to functionalize the DNA nanostructures, the modified units are not
always compatible since the slight changes may disrupt the property of DNA
nanostructures. FNAs are perfect units to be fused into DNA nanostructures to
activate the interface of DNA nanostructure with the function as aforementioned,
inducing the assembly of target molecules on nanostructures, changing the con-
formations with the environmental change, acting as a nanoscale machines, and
delivering drug cargo to cells as desired. The assembly of the guest molecules
by FNA-functionalized DNA nanostructures under nanoscale precision needs more
modulating on the orientation and position which may further enable the genera-
tion of superlattice-like nanostructure of any molecule by DNA nanotechnology.
More complex, more robust DNA nanomachines with unique function and higher
efficiency are anticipated to challenge their natural counterparts.

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