Fig. 4: Hybrid organic-inorganic nanowires with ~170-fold higher conductivity through site-specific incorporation of nsAAs conjugated to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs).

a AFM image of AuNP-pili resulting from reacting azide-functionalized AuNPs with PrOF-containing pili with copper added to the Cu-catalyzed click chemistry reaction. Scale bar 100 nm, corresponding height profile below. Experiment independently repeated three times with similar results simultaneously with experiments performed for Fig. 4b. b AFM image of naked PrOF-containing pili resulting from reacting azide-functionalized AuNPs with PrOF-containing pili without copper added to the Cu-catalyzed click chemistry reaction. Scale bar 20 nm, corresponding height profile below. Experiment independently repeated three times with similar results simultaneously with experiments performed for Fig. 4a. c, d Current-voltage profile of pili incorporating c 2NaA and d PrOF conjugated with AuNP. Representative points were shifted by a constant value such that the slope of the current-voltage curve retained the same value but intercepted at zero for comparison purposes. Raw current-voltage data is provided in Supplementary Fig. 3 and the source file. e Conductivity of pili biomaterials incorporating nsAAs. Error bars represent s.e.m (n = 3).