Sticky gold

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have managed to attach gold nanoparticles to proteins to form sheets of protein-gold.

The technique of attaching nanoparticles to protein can be used to analyse protein structures, identify functional parts of proteins and to ‘glue’ together new protein complexes. The researchers suggested possible applications including catalysts that convert biomass to energy, to the targeted delivery of drugs in the body.

‘Our study demonstrates that nanoparticles are appealing templates for assembling functional biomolecules with extensive potential impact across the fields of energy conversion, structural biology, drug delivery and medical imaging,’ said Minghui Hu, a PhD student working on the project at the Brookhaven Lab.

The creation of single layers of densely packed enzymes, which make up the functional part of catalytic electrodes used to convert organic fuels such as ethanol to electricity, has previously been a challenge to scientists.

With the new technology, however, scientists can ‘glue’ enzymes together using the gold nanoparticles to form ordered single layers stable enough to be transferred onto a solid surface, such as an electrode, to be used in energy conversion.