Far-from-equilibrium assembly of multimers through DNA-based catalytic templating

On-demand assembly of arbitrary, sequence-defined polymers from a pool of monomers is a major challenge in modern chemistry, towards which limited progress has been made. By contrast, biological systems routinely use information-bearing DNA and RNA templates to catalytically synthesize a precise, far-from-equilibrium ensemble of nucleic acid and protein sequences from the available pools of nucleoside triphosphates or aminoacyl-tRNAs. Inspired by these biological examples, we introduce an enzyme-free DNA strand displacement network in which single-stranded DNA sequences template the assembly of specific non-covalent DNA multimers of up to length five, under isothermal and autonomous conditions. The templates overcome product inhibition and can thereby catalyse the formation of a far-from-equilibrium ensemble of long-lived metastable products that are not otherwise addressable.