The goal of our project was divided into following five steps to accomplish dynamic gel movement.
1. make a hydrogel
2. make the gel swell
3. make the gel shrink
4. make a spider-web shaped gel
5. make the spider-web shaped gel swell and shrink.
First of all, we make a X-motif consisted of four strands, and confirm the thermodynamic stability by meltcurve (Ex.1). Then, we make the gel swell, and confirm swelling by using DNA beads (Ex.3). The same kind of experiment is done to confirm shrinking (Ex.4). In order to make a spider-web shaped gel, we adopt to use microdevices (Ex. 2-2). We use that microdevice to make a spider-web shaped gel which swells and shrinks by adding the strands used in Ex.2 and Ex.3.
