Harnessing a paper-folding mechanism for reconfigurable DNA origami.

The paper-folding mechanism has been widely adopted in building of reconfigurable macroscale systems because of its unique capabilities and advantages in programming variable shapes and stiffness into a structure ^1-5 . However, it has barely been exploited in the construction of molecular-level systems owing to the lack of a suitable design principle, even though various dynamic structures based on DNA self-assembly ^6-9 have been developed ^10-23 . Here we propose a method to harness the paper-folding mechanism to create reconfigurable DNA origami structures. The main idea is to build a reference, planar wireframe structure ²⁴ whose edges follow a crease pattern in paper folding so that it can be folded into various target shapes. We realized several paper-like folding and unfolding patterns using DNA strand displacement ²⁵ with high yield. Orthogonal folding, repeatable folding and unfolding, folding-based microRNA detection and fluorescence signal control were demonstrated. Stimuli-responsive folding and unfolding triggered by pH or light-source change were also possible. Moreover, by employing hierarchical assembly ²⁶ we could expand the design space and complexity of the paper-folding mechanism in a highly programmable manner. Because of its high programmability and scalability, we expect that the proposed paper-folding-based reconfiguration method will advance the development of complex molecular systems.
(© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)