Abstract:
Protein nanofibrils and nanotubes are now widely accepted as having potential for use in the field of bionanotechnology. For this to be a feasible alternative to existing technologies, there is a need for a commercially viable source. Previous work has identified amyloid fibrils formed from crude crystallin proteins as such a source, since these fibrils can be produced in large quantities at a low cost. Applications include use of fibrils as templates for the formation of nanowires or as biosensing scaffolds. There remains a number of practical considerations, such as stability and the ability to control their arrangement. In this study, crude crystallin amyloid fibrils are shown to be stable in a range of biological and clean room solvents, with the fibril presence confirmed by transmission electron microscopy and the thioflavin T fluorescent assay. The fibrils were also immobilised between microelectrodes using dielectrophoresis, which enabled the recording of I-V curves for small numbers of fibrils. This investigation showed the fibrils to have low conductivity, with current values in the range of 10(-10) A recorded. This low conductivity could be increased through modification, or alternately, the fibrils could be used unmodified for applications where they can act as templates or high surface area nanoscaffolds.