A universal way to enrich the nanoparticle lattices with polychrome DNA origami “homologs”

DNA origami technology has rapidly developed into an ideal means to programmably crystallize nanoparticles. However, most existing DNA origami three-dimensional platforms normally used a single type of DNA origami unit, which greatly limits the types of nanoparticle superlattices that can be synthesized. Here, we report a universal strategy to vastly enrich the library of nanoparticle superlattices, based on multiple-unit (≥4 units) DNA origami platforms, which were constructed by programmably cocrystallizing three different DNA origami octahedral “homologs.” Through selectively inserting nanoparticles into DNA origami monomers, numerous nanoparticle superlattices can be synthesized on the basis of the same platform. In this work, we obtained 85 types of DOF/AuNP (DNA origami frame/gold nanoparticle) superlattices using three different DNA origami platforms as examples. We believe that our strategy can provide possible access to fabricate virtually endless types of nanoparticle superlattices and promote the construction of functional materials with special properties.