Fig. 4. Isothermal assembly of hybrid DNA-RNA nanotubes inside compartments at 37 °C.

a Inactive DNA tile, lacking sticky-ends necessary for self-assembly on one side of the tile, is activated by the addition of RNA molecules and triggers self-assembly into nanotubes. Inactive tiles and trigger RNA are mixed immediately before encapsulation and incubated at 37 °C. b, c Representative fluorescence microscopy images of droplets encapsulated with 500 nM inactive tiles, and 1x and 4x RNA trigger (insets) with plots of mean skewness (purple) and kurtosis (orange). Data were presented as mean values ± standard deviation. Data extracted using droplet detection code as described in Supplementary Note S4.13. The number of droplets sampled and a histogram data of radii for sampled droplets in Supplementary Note S5.9 and S5.10. Source data for this figure is provided as a source data file. Scale bars: 20 μm.