How Do DNA Molecular Springs Modulate Protein–Protein Interactions: Experimental and Theoretical Results

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) nanomachines have been widely exploited in enzyme activity regulation, protein crystallization, protein assembly, and control of the protein-protein interaction (PPI). Yet, the fundamental biophysical framework of DNA nanomachines in the case of regulating protein-protein interactions remains elusive. Here, we established a DNA nanospring-mCherry model with mCherry homodimers of different <i>K</i>_d. Using size exclusion chromatography and fluorescence polarization, we profiled the DNA nanospring-mediated manipulation of PPI as an entropy-reducing process. The energy transfer efficiency was a function of the length of the complementary sequence and the geometry of the DNA nanospring construction. With basic force analysis and physical chemistry calculation, we proposed a unified model of the correlation between the dissociation constant, local concentration, construction of DNA nanospring, and kinetics of protein dimerization. Overall, we demonstrated that the DNA nanospring-mCherry conjugate was a simple and practical model to analyze DNA-controlled protein-protein interaction.