Directed Metallisation Using Molecular Recognition Tools

During this thesis a new infrastructure of methods to template functional materials at specific sites in a DNA architecture using molecular recognition of specific DNA duplexes has been developed. The project focused on the use of naturally occurring duplex DNA and the Tollens’ reaction as a mild source of metal amenable to reduction in the presence of aldehyde functional groups. The advantages of this choice are: 1) The use of naturally-occurring DNA increases modularity; 2) The Tollens’ reagent acts as a mild selective metallising reagent that enables the reduction of metal ions at specific sites along DNA. Molecules such as Pyrrole-Imidazole polyamides were prepared and were tested to determine whether selective metallisation of DNA nano-architectures can be achieved by confining the nucleation and growth of silver nanostructures to defined regions along a DNA duplex.