Bioengineering a Single-Protein Junction
Bioengineering a Single-Protein Junction
M. P. Ruiz, A. C. Aragonès, N. Camarero, J. G. Vilhena, M. Ortega, L. A. Zotti, R.
Pérez, J. C. Cuevas, P. Gorostiza, I. Díez-Pérez.
J. Am. Chem. Soc.,139 (2017) 15337.
We show here the first example of bioengineered charge transport in a single-protein electrical contact. The results reveal that a single point-site mutation at the docking hydrophobic patch of a Cu-azurin causes minor structural distortion of the protein blue Cu site and a dramatic change in the charge transport regime of the single-protein contact, which goes from the classical Cu-mediated two-step transport in this system to a direct coherent tunneling. This work is a direct evidence of charge transport control in a protein backbone through external mutagenesis and aunique nanoscale platform to study structurally related biological electron transfer.