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

Daniel Mark Shapiro, Gunasheil Mandava, Sibel Ebru Yalcin, Pol Arranz-Gibert, Peter J. Dahl, Catharine Shipps, Yangqi Gu, Vishok Srikanth, Aldo I. Salazar-Morales, J. Patrick O’Brien, Koen Vanderschuren, Dennis Vu, Victor S. Batista, Nikhil S. Malvankar () and Farren J. Isaacs ()
Additional contact information
Daniel Mark Shapiro: Yale University
Gunasheil Mandava: Yale University
Sibel Ebru Yalcin: Yale University
Pol Arranz-Gibert: Yale University
Peter J. Dahl: Yale University
Catharine Shipps: Yale University
Yangqi Gu: Yale University
Vishok Srikanth: Yale University
Aldo I. Salazar-Morales: Yale University
J. Patrick O’Brien: Yale University
Koen Vanderschuren: Yale University
Dennis Vu: Yale University
Victor S. Batista: Yale University
Nikhil S. Malvankar: Yale University
Farren J. Isaacs: Yale University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: 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 pili networks. Site-specific conjugation of pili with gold nanoparticles, facilitated by incorporating the nonstandard amino acid propargyloxy-phenylalanine, increased filament conductivity ~170-fold. This work demonstrates the sequence-defined production of highly-conductive protein nanowires and hybrid organic-inorganic biomaterials with genetically-programmable electronic functionalities not accessible in nature or through chemical-based synthesis.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28206-x

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