Genetic Engineering of Biomolecular Scaffolds for the Fabrication of Organic and Metallic Nanowires

摘要

Biological scaffolds serve as excellent templates for the fabrication of nanowires. In several pioneering studies, metals and other inorganic materials were deposited on natural biological scaffolds to form well-ordered wires at the nano-scale. However, the potential application of biological fibrils may be extended further, as the powerful tools of genetic engineering enable fiber functionality, binding selectivity, and material composition to be predefined and genetically encoded. Herein, we report the fabrication of genetically engineered metal-binding 5 nm thick cytoskeletal filaments on the basis of the self-assembly of an FtsZ protein redesigned to accommodate short binding peptides. The spontaneously organized protein filament was designed as a tailor-made scaffold to promote both the self-assembly of the wires and the specific anchoring of inorganic materials and biomolecules. The fusion of gold-binding and silver-reducing peptides to FtsZ monomers enabled the construction of protein-based gold and silver wires. Furthermore, the biotin-ylated FtsZ filament was used as a self-positioning wire to connect avidin magnetic beads. The enhancement of natural filaments with variable peptide motifs offers a new bioin-spired platform for nanotechnologies.