Protein nanowires with tunable functionality and programmable self-assembly using sequence-controlled synthesis.

ABSTRACT: Advances in synthetic biology permit the genetic encoding of synthetic chemistries at monomeric precision, enabling the synthesis of programmable proteins with tunable properties. Bacterial pili serve as an attractive biomaterial for the development of engineered protein materials due to their ability to self-assemble into mechanically robust filaments. However, most biomaterials lack electronic functionality and atomic structures of putative conductive proteins are not known. Here, we engineer high electronic conductivity in pili produced by a genomically-recoded E. coli strain. Incorporation of tryptophan into pili increased conductivity of individual filaments >80-fold. Computationally-guided ordering of the pili into nanostructures increased conductivity 5-fold compared to unordered pi

SUBMITTER: Shapiro DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8837800 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature