Fabrication and Molecular Modeling of Navette-Shaped Fullerene Nanorods Using Tobacco Mosaic Virus as a Nanotemplate

To date, metallization studies have been performed with the nanometer-scale template, Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV). Here we show that fullerenes as well can be deposited on TMV coat protein in a controlled manner. Two methods were followed for the coating process. First, underivatized fullerene was dispersed in different solvents to bring the underivatized fullerene and wild-type TMV together. Improved depositions were obtained with the fullerene dicarboxylic derivative synthesized via the Bingel method. The form of the coating was analyzed by transmission electron microscopy. Our results demonstrate that the coating efficiency with the carboxy derivative was much better compared to the underivatized fullerene. The goal of coupling a carbon nanoparticle to a biological molecule, the viral coat of TMV, was achieved with the carboxy derivative of fullerene, resulting in the production of navette-shaped nanorods. The interactions between carboxyfullerenes and TMV were investigated through modeling with computational simulations and Gaussian-based density functional theory (DFT) calculations using the Gaussian09 program package. The theoretical calculations supported the experimental findings. This inexpensive and untroublesome method promises new fullerene hybrid nanomaterials in particular shapes and structures.