Journal of Nanomedicine & Nanotechnology

Building supramolecular peptide nanostructures by exploiting aromatic and helix-helix macrodipole interactions

11^th International Conference and Expo on Nanoscience and Molecular Nanotechnology

October 20-22, 2016 Rome, Italy

Emanuela Gatto

University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nanomed Nanotechnol

Abstract:

Biomolecules have been extensively investigated as possible components of nanoscaled electronic circuits. In particular, hybrid materials obtained by functionalizing metals with biomolecules have been recently synthesized, paving the way for the fastgrowing field of bionanoelectronics. In this work mono- and bi-component peptide-based self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have been immobilized on gold surfaces and studied by electrochemical and spectroscopic techniques. The peptides investigated comprised almost exclusively Cα-tetrasubstituted α-amino acids. These non-coded residues, because of their unique conformational properties, forced the peptide backbone to attain helical conformations, which promote the formation of stable SAMs on gold surfaces. Blocking experiments performed in potassium ferricyanide solution gave basic information on the stability and packing density of the peptide layers on the electro active surface, while fluorescence experiments performed by using spatially sensitive fluorescent probes, gave information about the possible formation, in the bicomponent SAMs, of raft domains, i.e. segregated single-component regions. The photocurrent generation properties of these mono- and bi-component peptide-based SAMs were studied by electrochemical and spectroscopic techniques. In fact, all the SAMs investigated were composed of peptides derivatized with chromophores strongly absorbing in the UV region to enhance the efficiency of the photocurrent generation. The composition of the bi-component SAMs on the surface have been analyzed by a combination of electrochemical and spectroscopic techniques. Interestingly, the surface composition is quite different from the solution stoichiometry used for SAM preparation.

Biography :

Email: emanuela.gatto@uniroma2.it