Abstract
Photonic DNA nanostructures are typically prepared by the assembly of multiple sequences of long DNA strands that are conjugated covalently to various dye molecules. Herein we introduce a non-covalent method for the construction of porphyrin-containing DNA nanowires and their networks that uses the programmed assembly of a single, very short, oligodeoxyribonucleotide sequence. Specifically, our strategy exploits a number of supramolecular binding modalities (including DNA base-pairing, metal-ion coordination, and β-cyclodextrin-adamantane derived host-guest interactions) for simultaneous nanowire assembly and porphyrin incorporation. Furthermore, we also show that the resultant DNA-porphyrin assembly can be further functionalized with a complementary “off-the-shelf” DNA binding dye resulting in photonic structures with broadband absorption and energy transfer capabilities.