Organic bioelectronics probing conformational changes in surface confined proteins.
The study of proteins confined on a surface has attracted a great deal of attention due to its relevance in the development of bio-systems for laboratory and clinical settings. In this respect, organic bio-electronic platforms can be used as tools to achieve a deeper understanding of the processes involving protein interfaces. In this work, biotin-binding proteins have been integrated in two different organic thin-film transistor (TFT) configurations to separately address the changes occurring in the protein-ligand complex morphology and dipole moment. This has been achieved by decoupling the output current change upon binding, taken as the transducing signal, into its component figures of merit. In particular, the threshold voltage is related to the protein dipole moment, while the field-effect mobility is associated with conformational changes occurring in the proteins of the layer when ligand binding occurs. Molecular Dynamics simulations on the whole avidin tetramer in presence and absence of ligands were carried out, to evaluate how the tight interactions with the ligand affect the protein dipole moment and the conformation of the loops surrounding the binding pocket. These simulations allow assembling a rather complete picture of the studied interaction processes and support the interpretation of the experimental results.
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Eleonora
E
Macchia
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica "M. Merlin" dell'Università e del Politecnico di Bari - Bari (Italy).
Domenico
D
Alberga
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Kyriaki
K
Manoli
Dipartimento di Farmacia - Scienze del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Giuseppe F
GF
Mangiatordi
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Maria
M
Magliulo
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Gerardo
G
Palazzo
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica "M. Merlin" dell'Università e del Politecnico di Bari - Bari (Italy).
Francesco
F
Giordano
Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale -Università degli Studi di Foggia - Foggia (Italy).
Gianluca
G
Lattanzi
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro - Bari (Italy).
Luisa
L
Torsi
D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D001710:Biotin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D011485:Protein Binding; D011487:Protein Conformation; D012666:Semiconductors; D013499:Surface Properties
D002352:Carrier Proteins; C017071:biotin-binding proteins; D001710:Biotin