Figure 3. Design principles for controlling the supertwist of DNA tile tubes.
a) Tile tubes with an odd number of tubes close with a discrete offset resulting in a supertwisted shape of the structure. b) By shifting single tiles in the design, the offset can be reduced stepwise as illustrated for the case of a 3 nt (left) and 6 nt tile shift (right) in a supertwisted 13-helix tile tube (stw13HT). Here, the tile-shifting gradually reduces the overall amount of supertwist in the structure.
