DNA motifs present an interface for harnessing the functional complexity of biological systems - such as recognition, information processing, communication, and replication. Implementing such complexity in synthetic materials is the key step to designing true next-generation molecular materials. However, a distinct lack of access to high quality polymer-DNA building blocks in large scale prevents this step forward in the DNA materials world. In this work, we present the efficient and fully scalable preparation of 4-arm starPEG-DNA building blocks of excellent quality in multigram scale. Liquid-phase on-PEG chemical DNA synthesis presents distinct quality and scalability advantages over classical solid-support DNA production, and unique access to starPEG-DNA conjugates. Nonetheless, multiple tedious reaction and purification steps have hitherto limited access to strands of only several nucleotides, preventing the construction of DNA materials by duplex formation for programmable molecular recognition. Our new method unifies these steps into a one-pot reaction with a single purification step, facilitating the efficient and fast addition of nucleotides onto starPEG in any scale. We showcase the practicality of this new process by synthesizing 4-arm PEG-DNA with 20 nucleotides per arm in 20 gram scale, and use this building block to construct first model network materials based on starPEG-DNA hydrogels by DNA duplex formation.

Scalable multigram starPEG-DNA synthesis by one-pot liquid-phase nucleotide addition

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.