Metalloprotein Engineering for New Materials, Drugs and Nanodevices

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of present efforts on the engineering thin films of of various metalloproteins, likewise P450 and C cytochromes and Photosynthetic Reaction Center (RC), from ab initio considerations on the individual proteins in solution up to the assembly and characterization of monolayers and multilayers. Over the years metalloproteins, namely P450, C and Photosynthetic Reaction Centers, have become the proteins of choice among the many currently under study in my laboratories towards the implementation of drugs, materials and devices for numerous industrial applications. It should be noted that several molecular manipulation techniques have been recently introduced which could be utilized in order to optimize the properties of the above cytochromes in a wide range of applications, namely:

• self-assembly (Morgan et al., 1992; Hoffmann et al., 1992; Nicolini et al, 1995);

• Langmuir-Blodgett/Langmuir-Shaeffer techniques and their modifications (Nicolini et al., 1993; Antolini et al 1995; Nicolini, 1996b, 1997), including utilisation of reverse lipid micelles (Erokhin et al., 1994) and derivatization (Riccio et al, 1996) to form ordered thin protein films;

• site-directed chemical modifications complementing the above two techniques (Bernhardt et al, this volume; Paskievitch et al., 1996).