Controlling the Bonding Site of Photosynthetic Reaction Centers on Au Electrode by Different Bifunctional Agents

The orientation of the immobilized protein is the key factor to effect the surface electrochemistry of the redox couples therein. The photosynthetic reaction centers (RCs) composite film was fabricated by self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on Au electrode. The bifunctional reagents e.g. 4-aminothiophenol (ATP), 2-mercaptoehtylamine (MEA), 2-mercaptoethanol (ME), 2-mercaptoacetic acid (MAA), and Poly(dimethyldiallylammonium) chloride(PDDA) were found to bond RCs at different sites. The square wave voltammetry (SWV), bulk electrolysis were employed for characterizing the composite film. The electrochemically-driven electron transfer (ET) behavior in films was found driven by SWV or bulk electrolysis. In case the electrode was modified directly by amino compound reagent, the greater force was needed. If the film was activated by SWV with frequency of 15 Hz, the SWV amplitude of about lOOmV for MAA-PDDA-RC and 250 mV or more for MA-RC film was needed respectively. When the ME-PDDA-RC composite film was stimulated by SWV, the peak for the bacteriochlorophyll dimmer (P) and secondary quinone (Q_B) appeared at first, then the peak of primary quinone (Q_A) came into being. Further more,if the simulated signal of SWV was continually applied, all of the peak current increased. On the other hand, the opposite process was observed while the potential of -0.4 V was applied by bulk electrolysis. For all the composite films,the redox potential for P⁺/P declined with frequency increasing from 30 to 150 Hz.As reported before, the redox potential of species in RC were:0.45-0.60 V (vs.NHE)for P⁺/p, +0.05~-0.15 V for Q_A and -0.20~-0.35 V for Q_B.