Template synthesis of metal-modified DNA complexes and applications in the construction of two- and three-dimensional metal-DNA nanostructures

With the development of DNA nanotechnology, different two- and three-dimensional DNA assemblies have been built with precise control. However, most of these assemblies do not have functionalities due to the intrinsic passive nature of DNA molecules. Transition metal complexes can bring a variety of properties such as luminescence, redox, magnetic and catalytic properties to DNA assemblies. This thesis describes templated synthesis methods for the incorporation of transition metal complexes into DNA strands in a site-specific way and their application to build higher-order DNA structures.;This thesis consists of four parts: (1) internal template synthesis of metal diphenyl-phenanthroline DNA duplexes which are highly stable, luminescent and electroactive, and the application of such metal-DNA junctions on the assembly of a dynamic cyclic DNA structure; (2) assembly of metal DNA cages from discrete cyclic structures; (3) using terpyridine and diphenyl phenanthroline modified DNA for the assembly of different coordination environments that are selective for certain metals, and their error-checking ability; (4) external template synthesis of chiral metal DNA junctions with four different single strand arms and its application in building metalated DNA nanotubes. This work in collection gives general simple methods to site-specifically incorporate a variety of metal complexes into one-, two- and three dimensional DNA structures with high efficiency.