Light-driven chiroptical photoswitchable DNA assemblies mediated by bioinspired photoresponsive molecules

Abstract

We show that the incorporation of chiral bioinspired photochromic compounds into inherently chiral DNA matrices enables the building of smart nanoscale photoswitchable chiroptical assemblies tunable over a wide range of wavelengths. Moreover, the use of light as external trigger affords precise control of the resulting hybrid DNA nanostructures, and their chiroptical activities can be spatially modulated without photochemical fatigue.