Initiator-catalyzed self-assembly of duplex-looped DNA hairpin motif based on strand displacement reaction for logic operations and amplified biosensing

• A duplex-looped DNA hairpin nanostructure is catalytically self-assembled based on strand displacement reaction.
• This system achieves concatenated logic operations with a feedback function.
• A biocomputing keypad-lock security system that can be automatically reset with no need of any external stimulus.
• Through integrating with rolling circle amplification, this strategy readily extends to amplified biosensing.

Here we program an initiator-catalyzed self-assembly of duplex-looped DNA hairpin motif based on strand displacement reaction. Due to the recycling of initiator and performance in a cascade manner, this system is versatilely extended to logic operations, including the construction of concatenated logic circuits with a feedback function and a biocomputing keypad-lock security system. Compared with previously reported molecular security systems, the prominent feature of our keypad lock is that it can be spontaneously reset and recycled with no need of any external stimulus and human intervention. Moreover, through integrating with an isothermal amplification technique of rolling circle amplification (RCA), this programming catalytic DNA self-assembly strategy readily achieves sensitive and selective biosensing of initiator. Importantly, a magnetic graphene oxide (MGO) is introduced to remarkably reduced background, which plays an important role in enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio and improving the detection sensitivity. Therefore, the proposed sophisticated DNA strand displacement-based methodology with engineering dynamic functions may find broad applications in the construction of programming DNA nanostructures, amplification biosensing platform, and large-scale DNA circuits.

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