Spatial Control over Reactions via Localized Transcription within Membraneless DNA Nanostar Droplets.

Biomolecular condensates control where and how fast many chemical reactions occur in cells by partitioning reactants and catalysts, enabling simultaneous reactions in different spatial locations of a cell. Even without a membrane or physical barrier, the partitioning of the reactants can affect the rates of downstream reaction cascades in ways that depend on reaction location. Such effects can enable systems of biomolecular condensates to spatiotemporally orchestrate chemical reaction networks in cells to facilitate complex behaviors such as ribosome assembly.

Strategies to Reduce Promoter-Independent Transcription of DNA Nanostructures and Strand Displacement Complexes.

Bacteriophage RNA polymerases, in particular T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP), are well-characterized and popular enzymes for many RNA applications in biotechnology both and in cellular settings. These monomeric polymerases are relatively inexpensive and have high transcription rates and processivity to quickly produce large quantities of RNA. T7 RNAP also has high promoter-specificity on double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) such that it only initiates transcription downstream of its 17-base promoter site on dsDNA templates.