Heat up the nanoscale! In this vibrant visualization, silica-coated gold nanoparticles harness energy from light, rapidly converting it into heat through plasmonic resonance. This photothermal conversion, featuring a steep temperature gradient, unlocks new possibilities in chemical synthesis, enabling efficient and selective reactions. This highlights a promising method poised to advance chemistry, providing versatility for generating novel materials and driving reactions beyond conventional heating techniques.

This cover image illustrates the evolving landscape of topoisomerase research powered by DNA nanotechnology. Depicted as a molecular staircase, the journey begins with classical plasmid-based assays and ascends through synthetic DNA nanoprobes and amplification-based strategies, ultimately guiding the discovery of new therapeutic drug candidates. Each step represents an innovative method for probing topoisomerase activity with greater sensitivity, programmability, and throughput—advancing both our mechanistic understanding and translational potential.

This manuscript aims to share important knowledge on the current state of nucleic acid point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices and DNA amplification methods. We provide an overview of POC nucleic acid diagnostic devices, including their history and recent advancements, in an attempt to improve understanding of these devices and their potential to enable reliable, quick, portable, cost-effective, and automatic diagnostics from sample to result. As part of our work, we intended to facilitate communication between academia and industry.

Advances in nanotechnology have enabled the construction of complex nucleic acid–based nanoarchitectures, but high-resolution structures are lacking due to difficulties in crystallization. Liu et al. designed and constructed discrete RNA nanostructures based on one-stranded tiles and solved three structures to near-atomic resolution: a 2D parallelogram, a 3D nanobracelet, and a 3D nanocage based on the previous two structures. The authors used their understanding of these structures to gain insight into similar naturally occurring RNA motifs, suggesting that RNA motif structures could be investigated by being configured into nanoarchitectures.

The plasmonic photothermal gold bipyramid transfers light energy into heat and radiates the heat out to the reaction solution. This allows the DNA and enzymes to interact and perform PCR and other bioassays.

The synthesis of topologically interesting molecules requires the manipulation of molecular recognitions with an extraordinarily high level of controllability – in particular nodes with correct handedness should be generated in the right position. Now, Di Liu, Yossi Weizmann and coworkers have shown that DNA knots and links can be created with DNA four-way junctions, and these synthetic topological structures can then be used to investigate important DNA-processing enzymes. The cover art is inspired by the famous Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. The double helical trees, symbolizing the DNA, reach high up to the knotted swirling clouds (topological structures) in the starry sky.

The co-replicational synthesis of scaffold and staple strands by RCA-based enzymatic machinery allows the generation of DNA nanoribbons (DNR) in one-pot. Due to their unique periodicity, rigidity, and high aspect ratio, DNRs are efficiently internalized into cells and escape from endosomal entrapment, making them potential nanocarriers for imaging agents and biological therapeutics.

AuNPs take the reliability of a typical isothermal DNA amplification assay to a new level of accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity.

The DNA's ability to organize can be utilized to connect two different enzymes or an enzyme and its cofactor to a structural support in specific locations. This allows for a series of enzyme reactions to happen in a particular order. Without the scaffold support, these reactions would not be possible. Additionally, the placement of the enzymes on the scaffold can be used to control their level of activity.

Supramolecular aptamer–thrombin linear and branched nanostructures.

A self-inking roller can be used to print an extended strip with periodic repeating units. In the same way, by the biochemical technique of rolling-circle amplification (RCA), a circular oligonucleotide sequence serves as a template for the synthesis of a complementary single-stranded DNA chain. If the DNA chain contains aptamers for a protein such as thrombin or lysozyme, subsequent complexation results in periodic protein–DNA composites.

As the cover picture shows, a tailored nucleic acid hairpin probe (top) is opened upon hybridization with the analyte DNA, activating the formation of the DNA cutter (central structure), which initiates the autonomous scission of a fuel substrate that leads to the replication of the catalytic cutter and to the formation of a fluorescent product as an optical readout signal.