2025-09-04
Overcoming the Speed Limit of Four-Way DNA Branch Migration with Bulges in Toeholds
2025-09-04 • Samia Bakhtawar, Francesca Smith, Aditya Sengar, Guy‐Bart Stan, John Goertz, Molly Stevens, Thomas E. Ouldridge, Wooli Bae
Dynamic DNA nanotechnology creates programmable reaction networks and nanodevices by using DNA strands. The key reaction in dynamic DNA nanotechnology is the exchange of DNA strands between different molecular species, achieved through three- and four-way strand exchange reactions. While both reactions have been widely used, the four-way exchange reaction has traditionally been slower and less efficient than the three-way reaction. In this paper, we describe a new mechanism to optimize the kinetics of the four-way…