Fig. 2

Isolation and imaging of RNA-DNA hybrid nanoshapes. a Native PAGE analysis of polygonal RNA-DNA-11 hybrid nanoshapes obtained from screening (see Fig. 1d). Nanoshapes isolated by extraction of individual bands from a gel migrate as discrete stable species. b Atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging of the nanoshape mixture. Scale bar represents 50 nm. c Perimeter analysis of polygonal nanoshapes observed with AFM imaging. Histogram peaks at multiples of 8 nm indicate the formation of triangles, squares, pentagons and hexagons having a side length that is consistent with the estimated length which includes RNA corner motifs (Fig. 1a) connected through 6 nucleotide single strand hybridization with a linear DNA module of 11 bp. The frequency of observed nanoshapes corresponds to the band intensity of species on the gel (see Fig. 1d). Hexagons occur at a low concentration and are not observed on the gel but are confirmed by AFM imaging (insert). d AFM imaging of homogenous populations of nanoshapes obtained by extraction of individual bands from the gel. Scale bars represent 50 nm. Inserts with individual nanoshapes are 30 nm wide. Source data are provided as a Source Data file