Bioinspired nucleic acid-based dynamic networks for signal dynamics

Signaling dynamic networks in living systems determine the conversion of environmental information into biological activities. Systems chemistry, focusing on studying complex chemical systems, promotes the connections between chemistry and biology and provides a new way to mimic these signaling dynamic processes by designing artificial networks and understanding their emerging properties and functions that are absent in isolated molecules. Nucleic acids, while relatively simple in their design and synthesis, encode rich structural and functional information in their base sequence, which makes them an ideal building block for constructing complex dynamic networks that can mimic those in living systems. This review briefly introduces nucleic acid-based dynamic networks that can mimic natural signaling dynamic processes. We summarize how the nucleic acid-based dynamic networks are utilized to mimic relatively simple biological transformations, such as feedback and feedforward, which act as sub-networks to produce complex dynamic behaviors upon collective integration. We also emphasize the recent development of far-from-equilibrium networks, which are designed for converting the spatiotemporal signal and coupling with the downstream systems to achieve different functionalities and applications, including temporary nanostructure and patterns, programmed catalysis, and more, using nucleic acid-based dynamic networks. We also address the challenges of developing nucleic acid-based dynamic networks by directed evolution, operating complex networks under confinement conditions, and integrating multiplex networks into cell-like containments aiming to create protocells with living features.