Publications by Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

Stimuli-Responsive Oligolysine-PEG Coatings for Reductive-Triggered Decomplexation

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Hugo José Rodriguez Franco

DNA origami nanoparticles (DONs) hold great potential for interacting with biological systems, yet their applicability is limited by nuclease activity and challenging ionic conditions in biological environments. Among various stabilization strategies, olig ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2025

Multivalent Presentation of TCRs on DNA Nanostructures as a Sensitive Probe for pMHC Detection

Kaltrina Paloja, Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Hugo José Rodriguez Franco

Dendritic cells (DCs) are key regulators of immune responses, presenting antigen-derived peptides on major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs) to T cells for recognition via their T cell receptors (TCRs). Despite the weak intrinsic affinity of the TCR-pMH ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2025

Interface flexibility controls the nucleation and growth of supramolecular networks

Georg Fantner, Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Vincenzo Caroprese, Navid Asmari Saadabad, Veronika Cencen

Supramolecular networks are abundantly present in nature and, like crystalline materials, often develop from an initial nucleation site, followed by growth based on directional interactions between components. Traditionally, the binding strength and direct ...

2025

Spatial and stoichiometric in situ analysis of biomolecular oligomerization at single-protein resolution

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

Latest advances in super-resolution microscopy allow the study of subcellular features at the level of single proteins, which could lead to discoveries in fundamental biological processes, specifically in cell signaling mediated by membrane receptors. Desp ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Evolution of multivalent supramolecular assemblies of aptamers with target-defined spatial organization

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Vincenzo Caroprese, Yoan Désiré Duhoo

Rapid identification of neutralizing molecules against new and mutating viruses is key to efficiently combating biorisk. Current binder identification techniques use a monovalent library of potential binders. Interestingly, proteins on pathogens are often ...

2025

Dynamic Surface Interactions Enable the Self-Assembly of Perfect Supramolecular Crystals

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Vincenzo Caroprese

Supramolecular crystals arise from noncovalent interactions between macromonomers and allow for the engineering of dynamic functional materials. For two-dimensional (2D) crystals, the substrate surface can induce the formation of new polymorphs not availab ...

2024

The CD8+ T cell tolerance checkpoint triggers a distinct differentiation state defined by protein translation defects

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

Peripheral CD8+ T cell tolerance is a checkpoint in both autoimmune disease and anti-cancer immunity. Despite its importance, the relationship between tolerance-induced states and other CD8+ T cell differentiation states remains unclear. Using flow cytomet ...

2024

Tailoring DNA Origami Protection: A Study of Oligolysine-PEG Coatings for Improved Colloidal, Structural, and Functional Integrity

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

Application of protective polymer coatings to enhance the biostability of DNA-based nanomaterials (DONs) has become common practice in in vitro and in vivo experiments. While the functional effect of these coatings is obvious, a detailed molecular picture ...

2024

High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy Imaging of DNA Three-Point-Star Motif Self Assembly Using Photothermal Off-Resonance Tapping

Santiago Harald Andany, Georg Fantner, Bahareh Ghadiani, Mustafa Kangül, Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Veronika Cencen, Marcos Penedo Garcia

High-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) is a popular molecular imaging technique for visualizing single-molecule biological processes in real-time due to its ability to image under physiological conditions in liquid environments. The photothermal off-r ...

Journal Of Visualized Experiments2024

Modulating the DNA/Lipid Interface through Multivalent Hydrophobicity

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Vincenzo Caroprese, Diana Kornelia Morzy

Lipids and nucleic acids are two of the most abundant components of our cells, and both molecules are widely used as engineering materials for nanoparticles. Here, we present a systematic study of how hydrophobic modifications can be employed to modulate t ...

American Chemical Society (ACS)2024

Unfolding a death signal to treat rheumatoid arthritis

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

A pH-activatable DNA origami nanostructure with geometrically patterned CD95 ligands reverses symptoms in a mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis without apparent side effects. ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2024

Balancing the Nanoscale Organization in Multivalent Materials for Functional Inhibition of the Programmed Death-1 Immune Checkpoint

Kaltrina Paloja, Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Jorieke Weiden

Dendritic cells (DCs) regulate immune priming by expressing programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and PD-L2, which interact with the inhibitory receptor PD-1 on activated T cells. PD-1 signaling regulates T cell effector functions and limits autoimmunity. Tumo ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

Biotechnological Frontiers of DNA Nanomaterials Continue to Expand: Bacterial Infection using Virus-Inspired Capsids

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings

The elegant geometry of viruses has inspired bio-engineers to synthetically explore the self-assembly of polyhedral capsids employed to protect new cargo or change an enzymatic microenvironment. Recently, Yang and co-workers used DNA nanotechnology to revi ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

Interplay of the mechanical and structural properties of DNA nanostructures determines their electrostatic interactions with lipid membranes

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Vincenzo Caroprese, Diana Kornelia Morzy

Nucleic acids and lipids function in close proximity in biological processes, as well as in nanoengineered constructs for therapeutic applications. As both molecules carry a rich charge profile, and frequently coexist in complex ionic solutions, the electr ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Stabilizing Polymer Coatings Alter the Protein Corona of DNA Origami and Can Be Engineered to Bias the Cellular Uptake

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Hugo José Rodriguez Franco, Jorieke Weiden

With DNA-based nanomaterials being designed for applicationsincellular environments, the need arises to accurately understand theirsurface interactions toward biological targets. As for any materialexposed to protein-rich cell culture conditions, a protein ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Multivalent Pattern Recognition through Control of Nano-Spacing in Low-Valency Super-Selective Materials

Kaltrina Paloja, Hale Bila, Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Vincenzo Caroprese

Super-selective multivalent ligand-receptor interactions display a signature step-like onset in binding when meeting a characteristic density of target receptors. Materials engineered for super-selective binding generally display a high number of flexible ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Spatially Controlled Activation of Toll-like Receptor 9 with DNA-Based Nanomaterials

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Alice Comberlato, Marianna Mainardi Koga

First evidence of geometrical patterns and defined distances of biomolecules as fundamental parameters to regulate receptor binding and cell signaling have emerged recently. Here, we demonstrate the importance of controlled nanospacing of immunostimulatory ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Significance of Receptor Mobility in Multivalent Binding on Lipid Membranes

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Diana Kornelia Morzy

Numerous key biological processes rely on the concept of multivalency, where ligands achieve stable binding only upon engaging multiple receptors. These processes, like viral entry or immune synapse formation, occur on the diffusive cellular membrane. One ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2022

Strategic Insights into Engineering Parameters Affecting Cell Type-Specific Uptake of DNA-Based Nanomaterials

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Alice Comberlato, Hugo José Rodriguez Franco, Marianna Mainardi Koga

DNA-based nanomaterials are gaining popularity as uniform and programmable bioengineering tools as a result of recent solutions to their weak stability under biological conditions. The DNA nanotechnology platform uniquely allows decoupling of engineering p ...

American Chemical Society2022

Selective Integrin alpha(5)beta(1) Targeting through Spatially Constrained Multivalent DNA-Based Nanoparticles

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Vincenzo Caroprese, Eva Eugene Kurisinkal, Marianna Mainardi Koga, Diana Kornelia Morzy

Targeting cells specifically based on receptor expression levels remains an area of active research to date. Selective binding of receptors cannot be achieved by increasing the individual binding strength, as this does not account for differing distributio ...

MDPI2022