DNA-functionalized polystyrene particles and their controlled self-assembly

Abstract

DNA-functionalized polystyrene colloids and their thermodynamic characteristics are investigated here. This system is built on micro-sized polymer bids with different lengths of DNA spacer grafted onto the surface of the particles. Two types of DNA linkers were designed to create a bridge between complementary DNA-functionalized particles, to better understand the effect of the DNA sequence on an annealing temperature (T_m) of the aggregation. The disassembly of the polymeric scaffold based on DNA melting is in a good agreement with that calculated from the thermodynamic information. However, the length and the topology of the DNA spacer are important for the experimental melting point because of the effect of the directionality of the double-stranded DNA between the DNA-grafted particles and DNA linker.