DNA cooperativity

Client
NIST
Year
2025
Type
paper figure system / explanatory diagram / data visualization
Field
DNA nanotechnology / DNA origami
Links
Nucleic Acids Research / bioRxiv preprint
Description
Redesign and redraw of manuscript figures for a study of DNA origami defectivity and cooperativity metrics.

Context

The manuscript studied how DNA origami design choices affect folding quality and defects. The figure set had to compare many routing, lattice, seam, and staple-motif variants alongside AFM images, gel results, and metric plots.

The original draft figures were low-resolution raster images and difficult to scan as a unified paper.

Approach

I redrew the figure set as vector artwork, revised the colors and typography, redrew the schematics, and replotted the graphs for consistency.

The largest structural change was figure 3: I replaced the original hexagonal organization with a grid-based schema that makes the design combinations easier to compare.

Selected Figures

Routing, lattice, and staple-motif diagrams redrawn as a consistent reference figure.
Design schema organizing scaffold rotation, seam modification, routing, lattice, and staple-motif variants.
Metric plots with consistent color categories and small mechanism diagrams below each plot.

Before / After

Figure 1 comparison showing the redraw from low-resolution raster diagrams to cleaner vector schematics.
Figure 2 comparison showing the same redraw approach applied to routing, lattice, and staple-motif reference diagrams.
Figure 3 comparison showing the larger redesign from a hexagonal layout to a grid organized by design category.

Plot Notes

Plot-redesign notes comparing the original graph style with revised colors, point shapes, line weights, and legend treatment.