Electron Transport Through Peptides and Blue-Copper Azurins*

Inspired by recent experiments [1], we present a theoretical study of the electron transport through heptapeptides based on alanine, glutammic acid, lysine and tryptophan. For them all, we found very low conductance values and we ascribed them to the high localization of their frontier orbitals [2]. We also show a combined experimental and theoretical work on the transport through a bluecopper azurin and a mutant; we found that the conductance channels in the single-protein electrical contact can be finely tuned by performing point-site mutations in the outer protein structure [3].

[1] Sepunaru, L.; Refaely-Abramson, S.; Lovrincic, R.; Gavrilov, Y.; Agrawal, P.;Levy, Y.; Kronik, L.; Pecht, I.; Sheves, M.; Cahen, D., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137,9617
[2] L. A. Zotti, and J. C. Cuevas, submitted.
[3] M. P. Ruiz, A. C. Aragonés, N. Camarero, J.G. Vilhena, M. Ortega,L. A. Zotti, R. Peréz,J. C. Cuevas, P. Gorostiza, I. Diez Pérez, J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b06130