Stable Formation of Gold Nanoparticles onto Redox-Active Solid Biosubstrates Made of Squid Suckerin Proteins

• Main Authors: Cantaert, Bram, Ding, Dawei, Rieu, Clément, Petrone, Luigi, Hoon, Shawn, Kock, Kian Hong, Miserez, Ali
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: suckerin; biomaterials; coatings; nanoparticles; proteins
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/80609; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/40583
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The use of biomolecules to synthesize inorganic nanomaterials, including metallic nanoparticles, offers the ability to induce controlled growth under mild environmental conditions. Here, recently discovered silk-like “suckerin” proteins are used to induce the formation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Advantage is taken of the distinctive biological and physico-chemical characteristics of suckerins, namely their facile recombinant expression, their solubility in aqueous solutions, and their modular primary structure with high molar content of redox-active tyrosine (Tyr) residues to induce the formation of AuNPs not only in solution, but also from nanostructured solid substrates fabricated from suckerins.