GNA: Glycerol nucleic acid, synthetic version of DNA a new nanotechnology building block

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The first self-assembled nanostructures composed entirely of glycerol nucleic acid (GNA, —a synthetic analog of DNA)have been made by Biodesign Institute scientist John Chaput and his research team.

The only chemical difference between DNA and a synthetic cousin, GNA, is in the sugar molecule. GNA uses a three-carbon sugar called glycerol rather than the five-carbon deoxyribose used in DNA. The sugar provides the chemical backbone for nucleic acid polymers, anchoring a phosphate molecule and nitrogenous base (B). Credit: Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University

The five carbon sugar commonly found in DNA, called deoxyribose, is substituted by glycerol, which contains just three carbon atoms.

The first self-assembled DNA nanostructure was made by Ned Seeman’s lab at Columbia University in 1998, the very same laboratory where ASU professor Hao Yan received his Ph.D. Chaput’s team, which includes graduate students Richard Zhang and Elizabeth McCullum were not only able to duplicate these structures, but, unique to GNA, found they could make mirror image nanostructures.

“Making GNA is not tricky, it’s just three steps, and with three carbon atoms, only one stereo center,” said Chaput. “It allows us to make these right and left-handed biomolecules. People have actually made left-handed DNA, but it is a synthetic nightmare. To use it for DNA nanotechnology could never work. It’s too high of a cost to make, so one could never get enough material.”

The ability to make mirror image structures opens up new possibilities for making nanostructures. The research team also found a number of physical and chemical properties that were unique to GNA, including having a higher tolerance to heat than DNA nanostructures. Now, with a new material in hand, which Chaput dubs ‘unnatural nucleic acid nanostructures,’ the group hopes to explore the limits on the topology and types of structure they can make.

“We think we can take this as a basic building block and begin to build more elaborate structures in 2-D and see them in atomic force microscopy images,” said Chaput. “I think it will be interesting to see where it will all go. Researchers come up with all of these clever designs now.”

10 thoughts on “GNA: Glycerol nucleic acid, synthetic version of DNA a new nanotechnology building block”

  1. We are all unwilling subjects of this and other ungodly experimentation. GNA is synthetic DNA and the Nazi scientists have little to no oversight by the scientists who have consciences. Laboratories should have cameras and glass walls.

  2. We are all unwilling subjects of this and other ungodly experimentation. GNA is synthetic DNA and the Nazi scientists have little to no oversight by the scientists who have consciences. Laboratories should have cameras and glass walls.

  3. We are all unwilling subjects of this and other ungodly experimentation. GNA is synthetic DNA and the Nazi scientists have little to no oversight by the scientists who have consciences. Laboratories should have cameras and glass walls.

  4. shubber. Why don’t you take a look at my near term proposal
    http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/06/taking-space-based-solar-power-to.html

    No one owns space. If anyone claims to own it or the UN says that no one can claim it is meaningless. Whoever is there first can do whatever they want and no one can do jack about it.

    The bring everything would be like project Orion. 8 million ton ship.It could launch 3 million tons. A city of 100,000 people, all their belongings, their factories, years of supplies. It uses Nuclear bombs (technology that we have had for over 50 years). Experiments proved feasibility. No one has disputed that it is feasible. Only that it has a big Public Relations problem.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

    The expense of the fissionable materials required was thought high, until Ted Taylor proved that with the right designs for explosives, the amount of fissionables used on launch was close to constant for every size of Orion from 2,000 tons to 8,000,000 tons. Smaller ships actually use more fissionables, because they cannot use fusion bombs. The launch cost for the largest Orions was 5 cents per pound (11 cent/kg) to Earth orbit in 1958 dollars. In 2005 dollars, the cost would be 32 cents/lb or 70 cents/kg. The larger bombs used more explosives to super-compress the fissionables, reducing fallout. The extra debris from the explosives also serves as additional propulsion mass.

  5. The leaving your parents basement analogy was for indicating that sometimes we leave someplace even if it costs more to do so. The economic only argument to not going to space.

    This, again, is why I hate most analogies. You leave your parents basement because you don’t want to be a loser and you want the chicks to actually be willing to go out with you. Of course, if you still have van halen posters and star trek figurines on your dresser in your own apartment, I can’t guarantee you’ll have any more success in getting lucky on your own as you would in your parents basement…

    We do things in space because they are CHEAPER than doing them with other means. Comsats, Navsats, Imaging – they all follow that paradigm. ISS, Skylab, etc. – they don’t.


    For the issues that you are talking about which go to the title of my article. You would have to find ways to bring water and food to the Gobi desert as well.

    Oh please. I could bring a solar power generator and a air-water extractor and not even have to dig a well.

    You would have the cost of growing food.

    Perhaps, but at least I CAN grow food. Nitrogen and C02 abundant in that (also abundant) atmosphere.

    There is also the issue that China claims the Gobi desert. So other countries tried to colonize the Gobi desert then they would need to follow the rules of the Chinese government.

    Um, remind me again – who owns space? Or is this more of that tired “the martians are coming” drivel that followed the publication of 1423?

    This matches up with the analogy of the basement (my house my rules).

    hence why I don’t like bad analogies 🙂


    Air can be brought and for certain places (moon, Mars) can be processed from local materials. Moon and Mars have gravity and a spinning space colony would have simulated gravity from centrifugal force.

    Oh, I’m sorry – i thought you were discussing practical achievable with today’s technology and budget issues. If you are simply hypothesizing based on sci-fi, well, then, I suppose there’s no real response. I might as well engage you in a debate on the merits of warp vs. transwarp conduits in a galaxy class starship.


    Leaving the basement, to a house that you have to build.

    Most people leave the basement to move into an already built house/apartment/RV/whatever. Hardly anyone actually builds (I mean LITERALLY builds) their own home.


    You have to connect to the local water line or if you move out to a place with no utilities (like space currently) then you have to dig your own well (it costs more but it can be done), you have to build a septic tank, you may have to grow your food if there is no store nearby.

    See my point above.

    Another option is that you buy a big mobile home that has more ammenities with it. You could start growing some indoor plants before you leave home while the mobile home is parked in the driveway. thus it will be easier when you go to that new plot of land off of your parents property.

    I’m sorry – I must have dozed off.. when did Crazy Eddie open his L-5 dealership where you could go and buy a fully equipped space station with all the amenities..? 🙂

  6. For me the camping thing is Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle and ISS. Each have 3-6 people going on short trips. They do not leave any significant (energy etc…) infrastructure for later work to build upon or infrastructure which makes it cheaper for those who follow.

  9. The leaving your parents basement analogy was for indicating that sometimes we leave someplace even if it costs more to do so. The economic only argument to not going to space.

    For the issues that you are talking about which go to the title of my article. You would have to find ways to bring water and food to the Gobi desert as well. You would have the cost of growing food. There is also the issue that China claims the Gobi desert. So other countries tried to colonize the Gobi desert then they would need to follow the rules of the Chinese government. This matches up with the analogy of the basement (my house my rules).

    Air can be brought and for certain places (moon, Mars) can be processed from local materials. Moon and Mars have gravity and a spinning space colony would have simulated gravity from centrifugal force.

    Leaving the basement, to a house that you have to build. You have to connect to the local water line or if you move out to a place with no utilities (like space currently) then you have to dig your own well (it costs more but it can be done), you have to build a septic tank, you may have to grow your food if there is no store nearby.

    Another option is that you buy a big mobile home that has more ammenities with it. You could start growing some indoor plants before you leave home while the mobile home is parked in the driveway. thus it will be easier when you go to that new plot of land off of your parents property.

    I think the basement and parent analogy can work fine and that your mall analogy is inferior 😉

  10. Here’s a few reasons:

    My parents’ basement has
    1) Air
    2) Running water
    3) Food
    4) Easy access to all of the above if supplies run low
    5) Gravity

    The problems with analogies is they are usually simplistic and appear to make a clever point, when in fact the situations are significantly different enough to make the analogy useless.

    You might as well have asked “Why not go to the mall instead of colonise space?”

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