Scheme 1.
Strategy for one-step surface engineering of hydrophobic nanocrystals with designer recognition. Hydrophobic interactions between the surfactant ligands (purple) on the nanocrystal surface and the diacyllipids (blue) in the chimeric DNA molecules lead to spontaneous assembly, encapsulating individual nanocrystal inside the diacyllipid core and leaving the oligonucleotide (multi-color) corona outside to confer excellent water solubility and tunable molecular recognition. The molecular structure of the chimeric DNA molecule is shown at the bottom.