Programmable multispecific DNA-origami-based T-cell engagers.

Multispecific antibodies have emerged as versatile therapeutic agents, and therefore, approaches to optimize and streamline their design and assembly are needed. Here we report on the modular and programmable assembly of IgG antibodies, F(ab) and scFv fragments on DNA origami nanocarriers. We screened 105 distinct quadruplet antibody variants in vitro for the ability to activate T cells in the presence of target cells.

Uncovering the forces between nucleosomes using DNA origami.

Revealing the energy landscape for nucleosome association may contribute to the understanding of higher-order chromatin structures and their impact on genome regulation. We accomplish this in a direct measurement by integrating two nucleosomes into a DNA origami-based force spectrometer, which enabled subnanometer-resolution measurements of nucleosome-nucleosome distance frequencies via single-particle electron microscopy imaging. From the data, we derived the Boltzmann-weighted distance-dependent energy landscape for nucleosome pair interactions.

Exploring Nucleosome Unwrapping Using DNA Origami.

We establish a DNA origami based tool for quantifying conformational equilibria of biomolecular assemblies as a function of environmental conditions. As first application, we employed the tool to study the salt-induced disassembly of nucleosome core particles. To extract binding constants and energetic penalties, we integrated nucleosomes in the spectrometer such that unwrapping of the nucleosomal template DNA, leading from bent to more extended states was directly coupled to the conformation of the spectrometer.

Placing molecules with Bohr radius resolution using DNA origami.

Molecular self-assembly with nucleic acids can be used to fabricate discrete objects with defined sizes and arbitrary shapes. It relies on building blocks that are commensurate to those of biological macromolecular machines and should therefore be capable of delivering the atomic-scale placement accuracy known today only from natural and designed proteins. However, research in the field has predominantly focused on producing increasingly large and complex, but more coarsely defined, objects and placing them in an orderly manner on solid substrates.