Directing reconfigurable DNA nanoarrays

The ability to faithfully pass information in a cascaded and controllable fashion has worked wonders for civilization and biology (see the figure). In the molecular engineering enterprise, researchers have craved a similar level of control over information flow within a network at nanometer-to-micrometer scale. On page 371 of this issue, Song et al. have used DNA, a readily available biopolymer with well-established structure and association rules, to construct finite-sized nanoarrays that transmit information from one side to the other in the form of structural transformation (1). This marks an important step toward programming nanoscale motions because it provides a generalizable way to propagate a local structural change across long distances along designated pathways.