ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a group of self-assembling nucleic acid and nucleoprotein nanodevices. The term nanoscale implies that the device itself does not exceed 100 nm in any dimension. Since the devices under consideration are composed of molecules made up of multiple atoms with bond lengths in the 100 pm range, in general, they exceed 1 nm in at least one dimension. On this scale, nucleic acid and nucleoprotein nanodevices are essentially macromolecules or macromolecular assemblies. Self-assembling nanodevices composed of DNA and protein have been prepared using DNA methyltransferase fusion proteins targeted to specific sites on oligodeoxynucleotides. I-switches are based on the capacity of the i-motif in DNA to form C-rich quadruplex structures. G-switches utilize the capacity of short guanine-rich sequences to adopt quadruplex structures under certain conditions. The ability to stabilize the folded or open structure has yielded several useful detection methods.
