ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a description of the design, synthesis, and self-assembly of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) amphiphiles and the applications of self-assembled DNA nanostructures. It describes self-assembly of DNA amphiphiles into various supramolecular nanostructures, with a special emphasis on the factors affecting the self-assembly. Amphiphiles are molecules having hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments joined together either covalently or noncovalently. DNA has also been applied as the hydrophilic segment in the design of DNA-based amphiphiles. DNA amphiphiles are generally classified into linear and brush-type amphiphiles. For the synthesis of a linear DNA amphiphile, one terminus of the oligonucleotide needs to be conjugated to a hydrophobic segment either covalently or noncovalently. Solvent incompatibility of solution phase synthesis can be overcome to a great extent by solid phase synthesis. Synthesis of oligonucleotides of more than 100 bases is hard to achieve using a conventional DNA synthesizer.
