Fuel-driven catalytic molecular templating
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Mitra, merry
Jurinovic, Krizan
Mukherjee, Rakesh
Ouldridge, Thomas
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Catalytic molecular templating, wherein a copolymer molecule serves as a sequence specific template to propagate genetic information to a daughter copolymer, is fundamental to cells. Templating underlies DNA replication, RNA transcription and protein translation, underpinning the molecular basis of heredity, evolution, and biological function, and allowing staggering complexity to arise from simple building blocks. It has hitherto been challenging to emulate templating without highly evolved enzymes, largely due to product inhibition of catalytic turnover, which is a major challenge for templated dimerization and prohibitive for longer products. We present an enzyme-free DNA-based templated dimerization reaction enabled and controlled by a fuel strand that actively displaces the product from the template only once dimerization is complete, overcoming product inhibition. We systematically investigate design variants to optimise catalytic turnover, and demonstrate information propagation through the action of distinct templates that assemble specific products from the same pool of building blocks. We also show that the fuel represents an input by which the templating can be controlled, allowing the coupling of catalytic turnover to the output of upstream DNA circuitry.
Date Issued
2026-08-12
Date Acceptance
2026-06-30
Citation
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2026, 148 (31), pp.33027-33038
ISSN
0002-7863
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
33027
End Page
33038
Journal / Book Title
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Volume
148
Issue
31
Copyright Statement
© 2026 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
License URL
Identifier
10.1021/jacs.6c03709
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2026-07-30