Fig. 1.

a Synthesis of the DNA tetrahedron and Gint4.T-TDN. Lane 1: S1; lane 2: S1+S2; lane 3: S1+S2+S3; lane 4: S1+S2+S3+S4 (TDN); lane 5: TDN mixed with Apt-tail (Gint4.T); Apt-TDN. Lane 1 was not visible because nucleic acid dyes cannot properly stain single-strand DNA. b AFM images showed that the heights of the TDN and Apt-TDN were ~ 2 nm. c Determination of the particle size and zeta potential of the TDN and Apt-TDN by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The average particle sizes of the TDN and Apt-TDN were 10.10 nm (A) and 13.54 nm (B), respectively. The average zeta potentials of the TDN and Apt-TDN were − 5.69 mV (C) and − 7.3 mV (D), respectively