Abstract
We reported a facile method for preparing self-assembly gold nanochains by using insulin fibrils as biotemplate in aqueous environment. The gold nanochains hybrid nanostructures, which are insulin fibrils coated by gold nanoparticles, can be fabricated by simply reducing the salt precursors using DMAB. By increasing the molar ratio between salt precursors and insulin, denser hybrid nanochains can be obtained, meanwhile the mean diameter of gold nanoparticles is changing from 8 to 10 nm and then to 12 nm. The fabricated gold nanochains hybrid had helix structure, which was confirmed by circular dichroism spectra. The hybrid nanostructures were also investigated by transmission electron microscope, atomic force microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectra, and UV–Visible spectroscopy. As the wire-like structure become denser, the suspensions show color-changing, corresponding to the surface plasmon resonance red shift, which is attributed to the increasing mean size of nanoparticles. Based on the characterizations, a hypothetic mechanism was suggested to describe the formation processing of hybrid gold nanochains.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.







References
Aldaye FA, Sleiman HF (2007) Dynamic DNA templates for discrete gold nanoparticle assemblies: control of geometry, modularity, write/erase and structural switching. J Am Chem Soc 129:4130–4131
Berry V, Rangaswamy S, Saraf RF (2004) Highly selective, electrically conductive monolayer of nanoparticles on live bacteria. Nano Lett 4(5):939–942
Bouchard M, Zurdo J, Nettleton EJ, Dobson CM (2000) Formation of insulin amyloid fibrils followed by FTIR simultaneously with CD and electron microscopy. Protein Sci 9:1960–1967
El-Sayed IH, Huang XH, El-Sayed MA (2005) Surface plasmon resonance scattering and absorption of anti-EGFR antibody conjugated gold nanoparticles in cancer diagnostics: applications in oral cancer. Nano Lett 5(5):829–834
Gras SL (2007) Amyloid fibrils: from disease to design. New biomaterial applications for self-assembling cross-β fibrils. Aust J Chem 60:333–342
Hamedi M, Herland A, Karlsson RH, Inganäs O (2008) Electrochemical devices made from conducting nanowire networks self-assembled from amyloid fibrils and alkoxysulfonate PEDOT. Nano Lett 8(6):1736–1740
Herland A, Björk P, Nilsson KPR, Olsson JDM, Åsberg P, Konradsson P, Hannarstrom P, Inganäs O (2005) Electroactive luminescent self-assembled bio-organic nanowires: integration of semiconducting oligoelectrolytes within amyloidogenic proteins. Adv Mater 17:1466–1471
Herland A, Björk P, Hania PR, Scheblykin IG, Inganäs O (2007) Alignment of a conjugated polymer onto amyloid-like protein fibrils. Small 3(2):318–325
Hsieh SC, Hsieh CW (2010) Alignment of gold nanoparticles using insulin fibrils as a sacrificial biotemplate. Chem Commun 46(39):7355–7357
Hsieh CW, Hsieh SJ (2011) Nanoparticle chain formation on functional surfaces using insulin fibrils as a structure directing agent. Mater Chem. doi:10.1039/c1jm10136f
Jansen R, Dzwolak W, Winter R (2005) Amyloidogenic self-assembly of insulin aggregates probed by high resolution atomic force microscopy. Biophys J 88(2):1344–1353
Jime’nez JL, Nettleton EJ, Bouchard M, Robinson CV, Dobson CM (2002) The protofilament structure of insulin amyloid fibrils. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99(14):9196–9201
Joshi HM, Bhumkar DR, Joshi K, Pokharkar V, Sastry M (2006) Gold nanoparticles as carriers for efficient transmucosal insulin delivery. Langmuir 22(1):300–305
Kane J, Inan M, Saraf RF (2010) Self-assembled nanoparticle necklaces network showing single-electron switching at room temperature and biogating current by living microorganisms. ACS Nano 4(1):317–323
Kim F, Sohn K, Wu JS, Wu JS, Huang JX (2008) Chemical synthesis of gold nanowires in acidic solutions. J Am Chem Soc 130:14442–14443
Kumara MT, Tripp BC, Muralidharan S (2007) Self-assembly of metal nanoparticles and nanotubes on bioengineered flagella scaffolds. Chem Mater 19:2056–2064
Leroux F, Gysemans M, Bals S, Batenburg KJ, Snauwaert J, Verbiest T, Haesendonck CV, Tendeloo GV (2010) Three-dimensional characterization of helical silver nanochains mediated by protein assemblies. Adv Mater 22:1–5
Liu Z, Searson PC (2006) Single nanoporous gold nanowire sensors. J Phys Chem B 110:4318–4322
Malisauskas M, Meskys R, Morozova-Roche LA (2008) Ultrathin silver nanowires produced by amyloid biotemplating. Biotechnol Prog 24(5):1166–1170
Matsuura H, Hirai A, Yamada F, Matsumoto T, Kawai T (2008) High-density DNA alignment on an Au(111) surface starting from folded DNA. J Am Chem Soc 130:5002–5003
Nettleton EJ, Tito P, Sunde M, Bouchard M, Dobson CM, Robinson CV (2000) Characterization of the oligomeric states of insulin in self-assembly and amyloid fibril formation by mass spectrometry. Biophys J 79(2):1053–1065
Scheibel T, Parthasarathy R, Sawicki G, Lin XM, Jaeger H, Lindquist SL (2003) Conducting nanowires built by controlled self-assembly of amyloid fibers and selective metal deposition. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100(8):4527–4532
Sharma J, Chhabra R, Liu Y, Ke YG, Yan H (2006) DNA-templated self-assembly of two-dimensional and periodical gold nanoparticle arrays. Angew Chem 118:744–749
Tang Q, Solin N, Lu J, Inganäs O (2010) Hybrid bioinorganic insulin amyloid fibrils. Chem Commun 46:4157–4159
Tseng RJ, Huang JX, Ouyang JY, Kaner RB, Yang Y (2005) Polyaniline nanofiber/gold nanoparticle nonvolatile memory. Nano Lett 5(6):1077–1080
Acknowledgments
Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21071122) and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China(Grant No. 20091333110009) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei (Grant No. E2010001169, ZD2010112, 2011162, 201101A130).
Author information
Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
11051_2012_855_MOESM1_ESM.doc
Figures of TEM images of bare insulin fibrils, a sample reduced by NaBH4, a sample prepared at molar ratio was 25 and a sample prepared without insulin fibrils. Supplementary material 1 (DOC 11,076 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, L., Gao, F. Self-assembled gold nanochains hybrid based on insulin fibrils. J Nanopart Res 14, 855 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-012-0855-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Keywords
- Self assembly
- Gold nanochains
- Insulin fibrils
- Helix