Star-polymer-DNA gels showing highly predictable and tunable mechanical responses

Ohira, Masashi*; Katashima, Takuya*; Naito, Mitsuru*; Aoki, Daisuke*; Yoshikawa, Yusuke*; Iwase, Hiroki*; Takata, Shinichi  ; Miyata, Kanjiro*; Chung, U.-I.*; Sakai, Takamasa*; Shibayama, Mitsuhiro*; Li, X.*

DNA duplexes are ideal crosslinkers for building such gels because of their excellent sequence addressability and flexible tunability in bond energy. However, the mechanical responses of most DNA gels are complicated and unpredictable. The melting curve analysis of the DNA gels reveals the good correspondence between the thermodynamic potentials of the DNA crosslinkers and the presimulated values by DNA calculators. Stress-relaxation tests and dissociation kinetics measurements show that the macroscopic relaxation time of the DNA gels is approximately equal to the lifetime of the DNA crosslinkers over 4 orders of magnitude from 0.1-2000 s. Furthermore, a series of durability tests find the DNA gels are hysteresis-less and self-healable after the applications of repeated temperature and mechanical stimuli.