Nucleic Acid Enzymes: The Fusion of Self-assembly and Conformational Computing

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Description/Abstract

Abstract. Macromolecules are the predominant physical substrate supporting information processing in organisms. Two key characteristics—--conformational dynamics and self-assembly properties—--render macromolecules unique in this context. Both characteristics have been investi- gated for technical applications. In nature’s information processors self- assembly and conformational switching commonly appear in combination and are typically realised with proteins. At the current state of biotechnology the best candidates for implementing artifical molecular informa- tion processing systems that utilise the combination self-assembly and conformational switching are functional nucleic acids. The increasingly realised prevalence of oligonucleotides in intracellular control points towards potential applications. The present paper reviews approaches to integrating the self-assembly and the conformational paradigm with allosterically controlled nucleic acid enzymes. It also introduces a new computational workflow to design functional nucleic acids for information processing.