Fig. 4

Relative sliding in the presence of DNA side-locks. a Schematic of the four DNA side-locks (i, ii, iii, and iv) introduced at the two ends of the DNA origami structure. Two differently sequenced segments (in blue and purple) are used to selectively lock and unlock the locks. b Schematic of the locking and unlocking mechanisms of the DNA sidelocks. c FRET and donor fluorescence signals monitored during sliding for samples with four (A), two (B), and zero (C) locks. The grey arrow indicates the starting position of the experiments. d Histograms of the end-to-end distance (s) of the filaments after two sliding steps in dependence on the DNA sidelocks and on the AuNC number. e Averaged TEM images for the locked structures with one and two AuNCs, respectively. Scale bars: 20 nm