Nucleic acid enzymes: The fusion of self-assembly and conformational computing

Macromolecules are the predominant physical substrate supporting information processing in organisms. Two key characteristics-conformational dynamics and self-assembly properties-render macromolecules unique in this context. Both characteristics have been investigated for technical applications. In nature's information processors self-assembly and conformational switching commonly appear in combination and are typically realised with proteins. At the current state of biotechnology the best candidates for implementing artifical molecular information process-ing systems that utilise the combination self-assembly and conformational switching are functional nucleic acids. The increasingly realised preva-lence of oligonucleotides in intracellular control points towards potential applications. The present paper reviews approaches to integrating the self-assembly and the conformational paradigm with allosterically controlled nucleic acid enzymes. It also introduces a new computational workflow to design functional nucleic acids for information processing.