Journal Article

Unraveling the origin of chirality from plasmonic nanoparticle-protein complexes

Landes, Christy F., Smith, Kyle W., Chen, Dong-Hua, Link, Stephan, Warning, Lauren, Guo, Hua, Zhang, Qingfeng, Jebeli, Seyyed Ali Hosseini, Dionne, Jennifer A., Hernandez, Taylor, Dai, Alan X., Baiyasi, Rashad, McCarthy, Lauren A.

2019

Overview

Plasmon-coupled circular dichroism has emerged as a promising approach for ultrasensitive detection of biomolecular conformations through coupling between molecular chirality and surface plasmons. Chiral nanoparticle assemblies without chiral molecules present also have large optical activities. We apply single-particle circular differential scattering spectroscopy coupled with electron imaging and simulations to identify both structural chirality of plasmonic aggregates and plasmon-coupled circular dichroism induced by chiral proteins. We establish that both chiral aggregates and just a few proteins in interparticle gaps of achiral assemblies are responsible for the ensemble signal, but single nanoparticles do not contribute. We furthermore find that the protein plays two roles: It transfers chirality to both chiral and achiral plasmonic substrates, and it is also responsible for the chiral three-dimensional assembly of nanorods. Understanding these underlying factors paves the way toward sensing the chirality of single biomolecules.

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science,The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subject: Aggregates / Assemblies / Assembly / Biomolecules / Bovine serum albumin / Chirality / Chromophores / Circular Dichroism / Coupling (molecular) / Cryoelectron Microscopy / Dichroism / Electron imaging / Gold / Microscopy, Electron, Scanning / Microscopy, Electron, Transmission / Nanoparticles / Nanorods / Nanotubes - chemistry / Plasmons / Protein Conformation / Proteins / Scattering / Serum albumin / Serum Albumin, Bovine - chemistry / Spectroscopy / Spectrum analysis / Spectrum Analysis, Raman / Substrates