There is growing interest in using combinatorially-selected solid binding peptides (SBPs) to control inorganic growth and morphogenesis and to assemble hybrid architectures across lengthscales. One of the advantages of SBPs is that they can be seamlessly incorporated at defined location of larger protein scaffolds through standard molecular biology techniques. This opens the door to combining the adhesive and/or growth-modifying properties of SBPs with the biological activity of proteins (transport, enzymatic, ligand binding, self-assembly, etc.) to produce new or improved functional architectures and devices.  In this presentation, I will illustrate these concepts with two recent examples from our laboratory. The first describes the construction of a variant of green fluorescent protein capable of mineralizing luminescent ZnS:Mn nanocrystals and binding silica microparticles, and its further modification with a DNA aptamer to enable rapid visual detection of UV-absorbing contaminants in water samples.  The second focuses on the design of a palladium-binding variant of <i>H. turkmenista</i> deltarhodopsin and its integration with palladium hydride contacts to produce a protonic device in which light-activated proton transport to the protode surface and subsequent hydrogen intercalation within its structure correlates with an electrical signal.

Building hybrid architectures for optical sensing and protonic devices with solid binding proteins

251st National Meeting (2016)

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