(304c) Gold and Palladium Deposition on the Genetically Engineered Tobacco Mosaic Virus with Controlled Metal Ion Loading

Understanding the metal mineralization on the biotemplates has potential to design nanostructured materials for nano devices. The tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has served as a model template to synthesize biologically inspired metal nanowires due to its unique tubular rod-shape. It has 4 nm/18 nm of inner/external diameter with 300 nm longitudinal length. Also, the genetic engineering of TMV is well established to modify it with active surface functionalities such as sulfhydry group. Researchers reported biotemplated metal nanowires with gold, silver, palladium, and platinum with various biotemplates including TMV. However, further progress of biotemplated metal nanowire synthesis is limited because few reports provided experimental supports elucidating the intermediates of metal deposition process.

As a model study, we investigate the gold(III) and palladium(II) ion uptake on the genetically modified tobacco mosaic virus (TMV1Cys). The gold(III) and palladium(II) ion loading on the TMV1Cys at equilibrium are measured using UV-Vis spectroscopy. Then, deposits of gold and palladium on TMV1Cys are prepared with the variation of metal ion loading under fixed TMV1Cys concentration to show the improvement of metal deposited morphology by increasing metal ion loading. Obtained samples are imaged with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to visualize the metal deposition on the TMV1Cys.