A ring-shaped protein clusters gold nanoparticles acting as molecular scaffold for plasmonic surfaces.

Background: Proteins are efficient supramolecular scaffolds to drive self-assembly of nanomaterials into regular colloidal structures suitable for several purposes, including cell imaging and drug delivery. Proteins, in particular, can bind to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) through van der Waals and electrostatic forces as well as coordination and hydrogen bonds leading their assembly into responsive nanostructures.

Methods: Bioconjugation of alkyne Raman tag-labeled 20 nm AuNPs with the ring-shaped protein Peroxiredoxin (Prx), characterized by a symmetric homo-oligomeric circular arrangement, has been investigated by absorption spectroscopy, transmission and scanning electron microscopy. The plasmonic behavior of the resulting hybrid assemblies has been assessed by Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS).

Results: The ring-shaped Prx molecules are demonstrated to adsorb onto the gold surface acting as "sticky" bio-linkers between adjacent nanoparticles to drive self-assembly into small colloidal AuNPs arrays. The arrays show nanometric interparticle gaps tailored by the protein ring thickness. The arrays exhibit improved optical activity due to SERS allowing detection of the Raman signals from both the protein and alkyne molecules.

Conclusions: This method can be used to build up SERS-active nanostructures using Prx as both a bio-linker and platform for attaching dyes, two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, and other biomolecules including DNA and enzymes.

General Significance: The development of colloidal SERS nanostructures is considered a significant step forward in spectroscopic bioanalysis. Though protein-tailored nanofabrication is in a childhood stage, these results demonstrate the versatility of supramolecular proteins as tools to build-up nanostructures which are still impractical to obtain through top-down techniques.