Biomod/2014/Kansai/Project

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Project

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Experiment and Result

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Background

Fig.1 smile mark and a star mark ^[1]

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is greatly useful materials for a building block in constructing extremely small structure. DNA nanotechnology has DNA tile at first generation and DNA origami at second generation. DNA origami is constructed by combining complementary chains between a long circlic DNA strand (Scaffold DNA) and more 200 kinds of short strands (Staple DNA) . Furthermore, Various structures could form by changing the sequences of staple DNAs in the self-organization.
It has been reported various nanostructures made of DNA origami. For instance, these are two-dimensional structure, such as a smile mark and a star mark,^[1] and three-dimensional structure like DNA origami box.^{[2] [3]} In the other, DNA pliers are known that is moving DNA origami.^[4]

Our vision and the goal

　

Fig. 2 QR code

Originally, DNA maintains the genetic code that is difficult to observe visually. The number of base that is scaffold DNA (M13mp18) is 7249. This indicates that it is possible to have information of 4⁷²⁴⁹ (= 10⁴³⁶⁴) kinds. It is enormous. But the information is difficult to observe visually. So we use the scaffold DNA as visually information even though it might be smaller (2^21×21) compared with the former information content. In the past, paper has been reported to represent a character by origami of a sheet ^[5]. We thought that trying to have more information visually. So, we focused on QR code that is one kind of two-dimensional code (Fig. 2).

It can convert black and white pattern into information such as figures and

Fig. 3 structure of a dumbbell hairpin

characters. Even if the QR code has wrong information, the QR reader can read the information. That has correction ability. In order to express it in nano size, we utilize height difference of DNA origami structure. We will give the height difference by inserting dumbbell hairpins in the DNA origami^[1] (Fig. 3) .AFM can read nano-structure height by black and white contrast. For example, High part is reflected white and low part is reflected black when the structure was observed by AFM. So, we certain the origami structure can represent QR code by reading it in an AFM. We design DNA origami modified dumbbell hairpins such as the QR code. And we have AFM read its construction. We analyze it. Finaly, if camera App can read the figure of nano QR code made of the origami, our project will be complete!

What's QR code

QR code means quick response code. It is possible to accommodate the large amount of data in a small area, and to accommodate not only numbers but also the language data such as English. You can quickly and easily scan it using a device such as smart phone. The QR code system has become popular outside the automotive industry due to its fast readability and greater storage capacity compared to barcodes. Recently, you find it out many places, for example, snack packages, plastic bottle’s labels, a scientific paper and much more.

There are versions 1 to 40, and the version 1 is the subject of nano QR code. This is made ​​of 21cells × 21 cells. The quantity of the storage data changes by Error Correction Level. It decreases so as to become high level. When it is the highest level (30% of ability for correction), as for the alphanumeric character, 10 characters, the kanji is stored only 4 characters. However, if it is the lowest level (7% of ability for correction), the alphanumeric is stored 25 characters, the kanji is in 10 characters.

We challenge to make the smallest QR code in the world!!

References

1. P. W. K. Rothemund, Nature, 2006, 440, 297-302.

2. A. Kuzuya and M.Komiyama, Chem. Commum., 2009, 4182-4184.

3. J. Kjems et al., Nature, 2009, 459, 73-76.

4. A. Kuzuya et al., Nature Commum., 2011, 2, 449.

5. H. Sugiyama et al., Chem. Eur. J., 2010, 16, 5362–5368.