Supramolecular Binding of Cationic Porphyrins on a Filamentous Bacteriophage Template: Toward a Noncovalent Antenna System

Abstract

Engineered viruses act as scaffolds to bind porphyrins on their surfaces, exploiting mainly electrostatic interactions. The close proximity between porphyrins and tryptophan residues, exposed on the solvent-accessible surface, leads to an efficient resonant energy transfer, which makes these systems suitable for developing noncovalent antenna systems.