Bioelectrochemistry and the Singularity Point “I Robot”?**

Expanding the Genetic Code of Bioelectrocatalysis and Biomaterials

Genetic code expansion is a promising genetic engineering technology that incorporates noncanonical amino acids into proteins alongside the natural set of 20 amino acids. This enables the precise encoding of non-natural chemical groups in proteins. This review focuses on the applications of genetic code expansion in bioelectrocatalysis and biomaterials. In bioelectrocatalysis, this technique enhances the efficiency and selectivity of bioelectrocatalysts for use in sensors, biofuel cells, and enzymatic electrodes. In biomaterials, incorporating non-natural chemical groups into protein-based polymers facilitates the modification, fine-tuning, or the engineering of new biomaterial properties. The review provides an overview of relevant technologies, discusses applications, and highlights achievements, challenges, and prospects in these fields.

Assessing Thermal Response of Redox Conduction for Anti-Arrhenius Kinetics in a Microbial Cytochrome Nanowire

A micrometers-long helical homopolymer of the outer-membrane cytochrome type S (OmcS) from Geobacter sulfurreducens is proposed to transport electrons to extracellular acceptors in an ancient respiratory strategy of biogeochemical and technological significance. OmcS surprisingly exhibits higher conductivity upon cooling (anti-Arrhenius kinetics), an effect previously attributed to H-bond restructuring and heme redox potential shifts. Herein, the temperature sensitivity of redox conductivity is more thoroughly examined with conventional and constant-redox and -pH molecular dynamics and quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics. A 30 K drop in temperature constituted a weak perturbation to electron transfer energetics, changing electronic couplings (⟨H_mn⟩), reaction free energies (ΔG_mn), reorganization energies (λ_mn), and activation energies (E_a) by at most |0.002|, |0.050|, |0.120|, and |0.045| eV, respectively. Changes in ΔG_mn reflected -0.07 ± 0.03 V shifts in redox potentials that were caused in roughly equal measure by altered electrostatic interactions with the solvent and protein. Changes in intraprotein H-bonding reproduced the earlier observations. Single-particle diffusion and multiparticle steady-state flux models, parametrized with Marcus theory rates, showed that biologically relevant incoherent hopping cannot qualitatively or quantitatively describe electrical conductivity measured by atomic force microscopy in filamentous OmcS. The discrepancy is attributed to differences between solution-phase simulations and solid-state measurements and the need to model intra- and intermolecular vibrations explicitly.

Site-specifically wired and oriented glucose dehydrogenase fused to a minimal cytochrome with high glucose sensing sensitivity

Direct electron transfer based enzymatic biosensors are highly efficient systems where electrons are transferred directly from the enzyme's electroactive site to the electrode. One way of achieving it is by 'wiring' the enzyme to the electrode surface. The wiring of enzymes to electrode surfaces can be reached in many different ways but controlling its orientation towards the electrode surface is still a challenge. In this study we have designed a Flavin-adenine dinucleotide dependent glucose dehydrogenase that is fused to a minimal cytochrome with a site-specifically incorporated unnatural amino acid to control its orientation towards the electrode. Several site-specifically wired mutant enzymes were compared to each other and to a non-specifically wired enzyme using atomic force microscopy and electrochemical techniques. The surface and activity analyses suggest that the site-specific wiring through different sites maintains the correct folding of the enzyme and have a positive effect on the apparent electrochemical electron transfer rate constant k_ET^app. Electrochemical analysis revealed an efficient electron transfer rate with more than 15 times higher i_max and 10-fold higher sensitivity of the site-specifically wired enzyme variants compared to the non-specifically wired ones. This approach can be utilized to control the orientation of other redox enzymes on electrodes to allow a significant improvement of their electron transfer communication with electrodes.