Bioelectronic silicon nanowire devices using functional membrane proteins

doi:10.1073/pnas.0904850106

Bioelectronic silicon nanowire devices using functional membrane proteins

^aPhysical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550;
^bDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720;
^cDepartment of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; and
^dDepartment of Civil Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Edited by Charles M. Lieber, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved June 23, 2009
↵¹N.M. and J.A.M. contributed equally to this work. (received for review May 1, 2009)

Abstract

Modern means of communication rely on electric fields and currents to carry the flow of information. In contrast, biological systems follow a different paradigm that uses ion gradients and currents, flows of small molecules, and membrane electric potentials. Living organisms use a sophisticated arsenal of membrane receptors, channels, and pumps to control signal transduction to a degree that is unmatched by manmade devices. Electronic circuits that use such biological components could achieve drastically increased functionality; however, this approach requires nearly seamless integration of biological and manmade structures. We present a versatile hybrid platform for such integration that uses shielded nanowires (NWs) that are coated with a continuous lipid bilayer. We show that when shielded silicon NW transistors incorporate transmembrane peptide pores gramicidin A and alamethicin in the lipid bilayer they can achieve ionic to electronic signal transduction by using voltage-gated or chemically gated ion transport through the membrane pores.

Footnotes

²To whom the correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: noy1{at}llnl.gov
Edited by Charles M. Lieber, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved June 23, 2009
Author contributions: N.M., J.A.M., and A.N. designed research; N.M. and J.A.M. performed research; S.-C.J.H. and Y.W. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; N.M., J.A.M., P.S., C.P.G., and A.N. analyzed data; and N.M., J.A.M., and A.N. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0904850106/DCSupplemental.