Functional Nucleic Acids-Nanomaterials: Development, Properties, and Applications.

Functional nucleic acid (FNA) nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field between nucleic acid biochemistry and nanotechnology that focuses on the study of interactions between FNAs and nanomaterials and explores the particular advantages and applications of FNA-nanomaterials. With the goal of building the next-generation biomaterials that combine the advantages of FNA and nanomaterials, the interactions between FNAs and nanomaterials as well as FNA self-assembly technologies have established themselves as hot research areas, where the target recognition, response, and self-assembly ability, combined with the plasmon property, stability, stimuli-response, and delivery ability of various nanomaterials can give rise to a variety of novel fascinating applications. As research on the structural and functional group features of FNAs and nanomaterials develop rapidly, many laboratories have reported numerous preparation methods to construct FNA-nanomaterials. In this review, we first introduce some widely used FNAs and nanomaterials along with their classification, structure, and application features, then we discuss the most successful methods of employing FNAs and nanomaterials as elements for creating advanced FNA-nanomaterials. At the end, we review the extensive applications of FNA-nanomaterials in bioimaging, biosensing, biomedicine, and other important fields, with their own advantages and drawbacks, and provide our perspective about the issues and developing trends of the FNA nanotechnology field.