Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
J Am Chem Soc. 2010 Feb 10;132(5):1462-3. doi: 10.1021/ja908812b.
Biological molecules can be used as versatile templates for assembling nanoscale materials because of their unique structures and chemical diversities. Supramolecular organization of molecular pigments, as is found in the natural light-harvesting antenna, has drawn attention for its potential applications to sensors, photocatalytic systems, and photonic devices. Here we show the arrangement of molecular pigments into a one-dimensional light-harvesting antenna using M13 viruses as scaffolds. Chemical grafting of zinc porphyrins to M13 viruses induces distinctive spectroscopic changes, including fluorescence quenching, the extensive band broadening and small red shift of their absorption spectrum, and the shortened lifetime of the excited states. Based on these optical signatures we suggest a hypothetical model to explain the energy transfer occurring in the supramolecular porphyrin structures templated with the virus. We expect that further genetic engineering of M13 viruses can allow us to coassemble other functional materials (e.g., catalysts and electron transfer mediators) with pigments, implying potential applications to photochemical devices.
生物分子由于其独特的结构和化学多样性，可以作为组装纳米材料的通用模板。分子色素的超分子组织，如在天然的光捕获天线中发现的，因其在传感器、光催化系统和光子器件中的潜在应用而受到关注。在这里，我们展示了使用 M13 病毒作为支架将分子色素排列成一维光捕获天线。锌卟啉的化学接枝到 M13 病毒上会引起明显的光谱变化，包括荧光猝灭、吸收光谱的广泛展宽和小的红移以及激发态寿命的缩短。基于这些光学特征，我们提出了一个假设模型来解释在病毒模板化的超分子卟啉结构中发生的能量转移。我们预计，对 M13 病毒的进一步基因工程可以使我们将其他功能材料（例如催化剂和电子转移介体）与色素共组装在一起，这意味着在光化学器件中有潜在的应用。
