Study sheds light how amino acid side chains and peptide secondary structure change electron transport
Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - 08:30
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org)—In an effort to understand how to meld electronics with biochemistry, known as bioelectronics, several research groups have studied how electronic charges travel through peptides. Proteins are made of peptides and peptides are made of amino acids. A group of experimentalists and theorists from the Weizmann Institute of Science investigated how amino acid side chains, peptide length, and peptide secondary structure affect electron transport by anchoring varieties of peptide chains between two gold electrodes. They found that the side chain as well as secondary structure directly affects electron transport. Their work appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.