Precise control of two-dimensional composition of proteins and nanoparticle conjugate for functional nanostructured...

In this study, we quantitatively analyzed the electrostatic blend adsorption of ferritin and apoferritin onto the surface of the precursor films by using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The precursor films were successively prepared by the alternate adsorption of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA) and poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) in the presence of 150 mM NaCl concentration onto the QCM substrate. We observed a monolayer adsorption of both ferritin and apoferritin by means of electrostatic interaction onto the outermost PDDA surface at pH 10.0. Under this condition, the composition of ferritin and apoferritin within the monolayer is linearly dependent on their ratios in the blended solution, thus showed an ideal blend adsorption behavior. The perfectly identical structure of ferritin and apoferritin should be contributed to this ideal blend adsorption behavior. We also studied the effects of total concentrations of their solution on ferritin and apoferritin blend adsorption. This study on the blend adsorption of ferritin and apoferritin by electrostatic interaction will be applied to the fabrication of multi-components homogeneous NP array because apoferritin can accommodate a variety of nanometer size inorganic materials within their interior spaces.