@article {3046, title = {Engineering Geobacter pili to produce metal:organic filaments.}, journal = {Biosens Bioelectron}, volume = {222}, year = {2023}, month = {2023 Feb 15}, pages = {114993}, abstract = {

The organized self-assembly of conductive biological structures holds promise for creating new bioelectronic devices. In particular, Geobacter sulfurreducens type IVa pili have proven to be a versatile material for fabricating protein nanowire-based devices. To scale the production of conductive pili, we designed a strain of Shewanella oneidensis that heterologously expressed abundant, conductive Geobacter pili when grown aerobically in liquid culture. S. oneidensis expressing a cysteine-modified pilin, designed to enhance the capability to bind to gold, generated conductive pili that self-assembled into biohybrid filaments in the presence of gold nanoparticles. Elemental composition analysis confirmed the filament-metal interactions within the structures, which were several orders of magnitude larger than previously described metal:organic filaments. The results demonstrate that the S. oneidensis chassis significantly advances the possibilities for facile conductive protein nanowire design and fabrication.

}, keywords = {Biosensing Techniques, Electron Transport, Fimbriae, Bacterial, Geobacter, Gold, Metal Nanoparticles}, issn = {1873-4235}, doi = {10.1016/j.bios.2022.114993}, author = {Szmuc, Eric and Walker, David J F and Kireev, Dmitry and Akinwande, Deji and Lovley, Derek R and Keitz, Benjamin and Ellington, Andrew} }