Protein Assembly Through Site-specific Interactions with Gold Nanoparticles

A universal method is described to design and construct protein-nanoparticle assemblies controlled by nanoparticle functionality, and placement of genetic tag into proteins. Well-defined binding complexes of nanoparticles and two proteins, the adenovirus serotype 12 knob and the mycobacterium tuberculosis 20S proteasome, were formed through site-specific binding between 6x-histidine tags in proteins and nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid functional groups on gold nanoparticles.