Target-catalyzed autonomous assembly of dendrimer-like DNA nanostructures for enzyme-free and signal amplified colorimetric nucleic acids detection.

Self-assembly of DNA nanostructures is of great importance in nanomedicine, nanotechnology and biosensing. Herein, a novel target-catalyzed autonomous assembly pathway for the formation of dendrimer-like DNA nanostructures that only employing target DNA and three hairpin DNA probes was proposed. We use the sticky-ended Y shape DNA (Y-DNA) as the assembly monomer and it was synthesized by the catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA) instead of the DNA strand annealing method. The formed Y-DNA was equipped with three ssDNA sticky ends and two of them were predesigned to be complementary to the third one, then the dendrimer-like DNA nanostructures can be obtained via an autonomous assembly among these sticky-ended Y-DNAs. The resulting nanostructure has been successfully applied to develop an enzyme-free and signal amplified gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-based colorimetric nucleic acids assay.