Two Dimensional Nanoarrays of Individual Protein Molecules

Lei Shen¹, Adam Garland¹, Yini Wang², Zicheng Li¹, Christopher W. Bielawski^1,*, Athena Guo^2,*, X.-Y. Zhu^1,*

^{http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201200673/abstract} 

^{In this paper, the authors report a 2-D array of protein molecules attached to a substrate via Cu-click chemistry (protein-azides + susbtrate-alkynes).  The reason the proteins are regularly spaced is b/c the substrate is a diblock co-polymer composed of PS and PHEMA blocks.  These polymers self-assemble to form 1-nm wide hexagonal PS domains in a PHEMA matrix.  Incorporation of PS-alkynes into the PS block results in attachment points for protein-azides that are ~1nm apart -- thus only one protein can attach per block.}

^{Below are a diagram of the idea and the data from AFM studies (substrate and substrate + proteins).  They also do XPS (N1s) and SPR studies confirming irreversible binding of proteins.}