Spontaneous formation of stable molecular wires between a gold scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip and substrate is observed when the sample has a low coverage of alpha,omega-dithiol molecules and the tunneling resistance is made sufficiently small. Current-distance curves taken under these conditions exhibit characteristic current plateaux at large tip-substrate separations from which the conductivity of a single molecule can be obtained. The versatility of this technique is demonstrated using redox-active molecules under potential control, where substantial reversible conductivity changes from 0.5 to 2.8 nS were observed when the molecule was electrochemically switched from the oxidized to the reduced state.

Experimental data and theoretical notions are presented for 6-[1'-(6-mercapto-hexyl)-[4,4']bipyridinium]-hexane-1-thiol iodide (6V6) "wired" between a gold electrode surface and tip in an in situ scanning tunneling microscopy configuration. The viologen group can be used to "gate" charge transport across the molecular bridge through control of the electrochemical potential and consequently the redox state of the viologen moiety. This gating is theoretically considered within the framework of superexchange and coherent two-step notions for charge transport. It is shown here that the absence of a maximum in the Itunneling versus electrode potential relationship can be fitted by a "soft" gating concept. This arises from large configurational fluctuations of the molecular bridge linked to the gold contacts by flexible chains. This view is incorporated in a formalism that is well-suited for data analysis and reproduces in all important respects the 6V6 data for physically sound values of the appropriate parameters. This study demonstrates that fluctuations of isolated configurationally "soft" molecules can dominate charge transport patterns and that theoretical frameworks for compact monolayers may not be directly applied under such circumstances.

No abstract

Saturation mutagenesis constitutes a powerful method in the directed evolution of enzymes. Traditional protocols of whole plasmid amplification such as Stratagene's QuikChange™ sometimes fail when the templates are difficult to amplify. In order to overcome such restrictions, we have devised a simple two-primer, two-stage polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method which constitutes an improvement over existing protocols. In the first stage of the PCR, both the mutagenic primer and the antiprimer that are not complementary anneal to the template. In the second stage, the amplified sequence is used as a megaprimer. Sites composed of one or more residues can be randomized in a single PCR reaction, irrespective of their location in the gene sequence.The method has been applied to several enzymes successfully, including P450-BM3 from Bacillus megaterium, the lipases from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida antarctica and the epoxide hydrolase from Aspergillus niger. Here, we show that megaprimer size as well as the direction and design of the antiprimer are determining factors in the amplification of the plasmid. Comparison of the results with the performances of previous protocols reveals the efficiency of the improved method.

In a previous paper, the combinatorial active-site saturation test (CAST) was introduced as an effective strategy for the directed evolution of enzymes toward broader substrate acceptance. CASTing comprises the systematic design and screening of focused libraries around the complete binding pocket, but it is only the first step of an evolutionary process because only the initial libraries of mutants are considered. In the present study, a simple method is presented for further optimization of initial hits by combining the mutational changes obtained from two different libraries. Combined lipase mutants were screened for hydrolytic activity against six notoriously difficult substrates (bulky carboxylic acid esters) and improved mutants showing significantly higher activity were identified. The enantioselectivity of the mutants in the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of two substrates was also studied, with the best mutant-substrate combination resulting in a selectivity factor of E=49. Finally, the catalytic profile of the evolved mutants in the hydrolysis of simple nonbranched carboxylic acid esters, ranging from acetate to palmitate, was studied for theoretical reasons.