Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Nanotechnology

The importance of being modular

DNA is the material of choice for making custom-designed, nanoscale shapes and patterns through self-assembly. A new technique revisits old ideas to enable the rapid prototyping of more than 100 such DNA shapes. See Letter p.623

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: More emoticons for your money.

References

  1. Wei, B., Dai, M. & Yin, P. Nature 485, 623–626 (2012).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Seeman, N. C. J. Theor. Biol. 99, 237–247 (1982).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Chen, J. & Seeman, N. C. Nature 350, 631–633 (1991).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Rothemund, P. W. K. Nature 440, 297–302 (2006).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Andersen, E. S. et al. Nature 459, 73–76 (2009).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Douglas, S. M. et al. Nature 459, 414–418 (2009).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Dietz, H., Douglas, S. M. & Shih, W. M. Science 325, 725–730 (2009).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Han, D. et al. Science 332, 342–346 (2011).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Maune, H. T. et al. Nature Nanotechnol. 5, 61–66 (2010).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Endo, M., Katsuda, Y., Hidaka., K. & Sugiyama, H. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn 49, 9412–9416 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Douglas, S. M. et al. Science 335, 831–834 (2012).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Winfree, E., Liu, F., Wenzler, L. A. & Seeman, N. C. Nature 394, 539–544 (1998).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Rothemund, P. W. K. & Winfree, E. Proc. 32nd Annu. Symp. Theor. Comput. 459–468 (2000).

  14. Andersen, E. S. et al. ACS Nano 2, 1213–1218 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Paul W. K. Rothemund or Ebbe Sloth Andersen.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

P.W.K.R. is the inventor on a patent that describes the method of ‘scaffolded DNA origami’. For certain nanopatterning applications, the method in the paper described by Yin et al. is a competitor with the method of DNA origami.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rothemund, P., Andersen, E. The importance of being modular. Nature 485, 584–585 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/485584a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/485584a

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing