Facile and scalable preparation of pure and dense DNA origami solutions

DNA has become a prime material for assembling complex three-dimensional objects that promise utility in various areas of application. However, achieving user-defined goals with DNA objects has been hampered by the difficulty to prepare them at arbitrary concentrations and in user-defined solution conditions. Here, we describe a method that solves this problem. The method is based on poly(ethylene glycol)-induced depletion of species with high molecular weight. We demonstrate that our method is applicable to a wide spectrum of DNA shapes and that it achieves excellent recovery yields of target objects up to 97 %, while providing efficient separation from non-integrated DNA strands. DNA objects may be prepared at concentrations up to the limit of solubility, including the possibility for bringing DNA objects into a solid phase. Due to the fidelity and simplicity of our method we anticipate that it will help to catalyze the development of new types of applications that use self-assembled DNA objects. PEG packs them all: A depletion-based method is used for the preparation of self-assembled megadalton-scale DNA objects up to the limit of solubility, including the possibility for bringing such objects into a solid phase. Due to its fidelity and simplicity this method might benefit the development of new types of applications that use self-assembled DNA objects.