Micromechanical DNA Origami Force Sensor

A micromechanical spring sensor, comprising:

• a spring element comprising a nucleic acid and/or nucleic acid analog nanostructure beam pair comprising one or more single-stranded scaffold nucleic acids or nucleic acid analogs, and nucleic acids or nucleic acid analog staples, comprising:
• a flexible first beam and a flexible second beam pinned together at two or more spaced-apart pinning locations on the beams and defining unpinned sections of the beams and beam pair between the pinning locations, the beam pair comprising two or more fluorescent donor moieties arranged in the unpinned section of the first beam and two or more quenching acceptor moieties that quench the signal of the donor and which are spatially aligned in the unpinned section of the second beam with a corresponding donor moiety on the first beam, defining a gap distance between the corresponding donor and acceptor moieties;
• a first tether attached to the first beam at the unpinned section;
• and
• a second tether attached to the second beam at the unpinned section;
• wherein the unpinned section of the beams flex from a closed position with no tensional force applied to the tethers, defining a resting gap distance between the fluorescent donor moieties and the quenching acceptor moieties, to an open position with the application of a tensional force to the tethers where the beams flex apart to an open position with the first and second beam remaining pinned together at the pinning locations, defining a tensioned gap distance, wherein the resting gap distance between the fluorescent donor moieties and the quenching acceptor moieties is less than the tensioned gap distance between the fluorescent donor moieties for at least one pair of corresponding donor and acceptor moieties, such that the sensor produces a detectably different emission spectra when the beams are in the closed position as compared to when the beams are in the open position;
• and
• a drag element attached to a tether of one of the beam pairs.