Author: ["Isil Severcan","Cody Geary","Arkadiusz Chworos","Neil Voss","Erica Jacovetty","Luc Jaeger"]
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Abstract
Supramolecular assembly is a powerful strategy used by nature to build nanoscale architectures with predefined sizes and shapes. With synthetic systems, however, numerous challenges remain to be solved before precise control over the synthesis, folding and assembly of rationally designed three-dimensional nano-objects made of RNA can be achieved. Here, using the transfer RNA molecule as a structural building block, we report the design, efficient synthesis and structural characterization of stable, modular three-dimensional particles adopting the polyhedral geometry of a non-uniform square antiprism. The spatial control within the final architecture allows the precise positioning and encapsulation of proteins. This work demonstrates that a remarkable degree of structural control can be achieved with RNA structural motifs for the construction of thermostable three-dimensional nano-architectures that do not rely on helix bundles or tensegrity. RNA three-dimensional particles could potentially be used as carriers or scaffolds in nanomedicine and synthetic biology. Whereas synthetic DNA nanostructures are widely studied, the use of RNA as a structural building block is much less common. Now, it has been shown that tRNA molecules can be designed to assemble into a rigid and thermally stable square antiprism structure that may prove useful for delivery applications inside cells. Cite this article
Severcan, I., Geary, C., Chworos, A. et al. A polyhedron made of tRNAs. Nature Chem 2, 772–779 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.733 