title: Fabrication and characterization of gold nano-wires templated on virus-like arrays of tobacco mosaic virus coat proteins.
abstract: The rod-shaped plant virus tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is widely used as a nano-fabrication template, and chimeric peptide expression on its major coat protein has extended its potential applications. Here we describe a simple bacterial expression system for production and rapid purification of recombinant chimeric TMV coat protein carrying C-terminal peptide tags. These proteins do not bind TMV RNA or form disks at pH 7. However, they retain the ability to self-assemble into virus-like arrays at acidic pH. C-terminal peptide tags in such arrays are exposed on the protein surface, allowing interaction with target species. We have utilized a C-terminal His-tag to create virus coat protein-templated nano-rods able to bind gold nanoparticles uniformly. These can be transformed into gold nano-wires by deposition of additional gold atoms from solution, followed by thermal annealing. The resistivity of a typical annealed wire created by this approach is significantly less than values reported for other nano-wires made using different bio-templates. This expression construct is therefore a useful additional tool for the creation of chimeric TMV-like nano-rods for bio-templating.
authors.affiliation: Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wnęk
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Górzny
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wälti
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brydson
authors.forename: S D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: P G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Stockley
mesh_terms: D036022:Capsid Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry; D008422:Materials Testing; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D054802:Molecular Imprinting / Q000379:methods; D010316:Particle Size; D013499:Surface Properties; D014027:Tobacco Mosaic Virus / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*
chemical_list: D036022:Capsid Proteins; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D006046:Gold