title: Electronic Transport via Homopeptides: The Role of Side Chains and Secondary Structure.
abstract: Many novel applications in bioelectronics rely on the interaction between biomolecules and electronically conducting substrates. However, crucial knowledge about the relation between electronic transport via peptides and their amino-acid composition is still absent. Here, we report results of electronic transport measurements via several homopeptides as a function of their structural properties and temperature. We demonstrate that the conduction through the peptide depends on its length and secondary structure as well as on the nature of the constituent amino acid and charge of its residue. We support our experimental observations with high-level electronic structure calculations and suggest off-resonance tunneling as the dominant conduction mechanism via extended peptides. Our findings indicate that both peptide composition and structure can affect the efficiency of electronic transport across peptides.
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Lior
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sepunaru
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Sivan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Refaely-Abramson
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lovrinčić
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Yulian
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gavrilov
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Piyush
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Yaakov
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Leeor
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kronik
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Israel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pecht
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: Mordechai
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sheves
authors.affiliation: †Department of Materials and Interfaces, ‡Department of Organic Chemistry, §Department of Structural Biology, and ∥Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cahen
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry; D004579:Electron Transport; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D011789:Quantum Theory
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D010455:Peptides