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Protein–inorganic hybrid nanoflowers

Nature Nanotechnology volume 7, pages 428–432 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Flower-shaped inorganic nanocrystals1,2,3 have been used for applications in catalysis4,5 and analytical science6,7, but so far there have been no reports of ‘nanoflowers’ made of organic components8. Here, we report a method for creating hybrid organic–inorganic nanoflowers using copper (II) ions as the inorganic component and various proteins as the organic component. The protein molecules form complexes with the copper ions, and these complexes become nucleation sites for primary crystals of copper phosphate. Interaction between the protein and copper ions then leads to the growth of micrometre-sized particles that have nanoscale features and that are shaped like flower petals. When an enzyme is used as the protein component of the hybrid nanoflower, it exhibits enhanced enzymatic activity and stability compared with the free enzyme. This is attributed to the high surface area and confinement of the enzymes in the nanoflowers.

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Figure 1: Hybrid nanoflowers made from BSA and Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O.
Figure 2: Formation of BSA-incorporated Cu3(PO4)2·3H2O nanoflowers.
Figure 3: SEM images of hybrid nanoflowers.
Figure 4: Detection of epinephrine by laccase nanoflowers.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Brauman and K. Holmberg for helpful discussions and R-L. Jia for helping with acquiring TEM images. All experimental work was performed at Stanford University and was financially supported by the US National Science Foundation (CBET-0827806).

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Author notes

  1. Jun Ge and Jiandu Lei: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, PR China

    Jun Ge

  2. National Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, PR China

    Jiandu Lei

  3. Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305-5080, California, USA

    Jun Ge, Jiandu Lei & Richard N. Zare

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  2. Jiandu Lei
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Contributions

J.G., J.L. and R.N.Z. conceived and designed the experiments. J.G. and J.L. performed the experiments. J.G. and R.N.Z. analysed the data and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard N. Zare.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ge, J., Lei, J. & Zare, R. Protein–inorganic hybrid nanoflowers. Nature Nanotech 7, 428–432 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.80

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