Two papers on DNA nanostructures for scaffolding of proteins, plus some other stuff...

Designed Protein Cages as Scaffolds for Building Multienzyme Materials
https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.9b00407

In this paper, the authors developed a modular platform to produce designer nanocages that display multiple enzymes in high copy number on their exterior. This is particularly interesting because the functions of enzymes can be strongly affected by their higher-order spatial arrangements.

This approach harnesses the sequence specificity and robust ligation activity of the S. aureus sortase A (SrtA) enzyme, a widely used cysteine transpeptidase. They show that the surface of a designer nanocage can be elaborated with multiple cellulase enzymes using a sortase enzyme as the linking catalyst.


Engineering a DNAzyme-Based Operon System for the Production of DNA nanoscaffolds in Living Bacteria
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acssynbio.9b00415

The present work describes a methodology to create DNA nanostructures in vivo that allow the directed spatial co-localization of proteins in vivo. This feat is achieved through the implementation in a single RNA transcript of all the DNA sequences that will form the structure separated in the sequence by self-cleaving DNAzymes. In order to produce the DNA nanostructure, the RNA transcript gets retrotranscribed into DNA and the DNAzymes cleave the nanoscaffold strands when Zn is present. This allows the scaffold's self-assembly, exposing in the process certain dsDNA sequences that will be recognized and bound by the Zn fingers-like domains of the proteins co-expressed in the operon.


Design of thiazole orange oligonucleotide probes for detection of DNA and RNA by fluorescence and duplex melting
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/ob/c9ob00885c#!divAbstract

The authors characterise the effect of modifying one nucleotide in a nucleic acid strand with the dye Thiazole Orange. This dye produce a higher fluorescence when the strand is hybridized with another. Changing the position of the dye in the nucleotide and in the strand, they are able to use the dye to discriminate if the strand binds DNA or RNA. They also employ the probe to detect the bound or unbound state of single mismatches in the strand.