Enhanced Selectivity by Passivation: Molecular Imprints for Viruses with Exceptional Binding Properties

Abstract

Inspired by the recognition processes found in biology such as enzyme-substrate and antibody-antigen interactions, synthetic systems with comparable molecular recognition properties have been investigated during recent years based on molecular imprinting strategies. While materials with recognition capabilities for small molecules (i.e., with low molecular weight) have achieved substantial advancements, the synthesis of molecularly imprinted materials with virus recognition properties remains challenging to date. Likewise, protein-surface and protein-protein interactions are essential for a wide variety of biological applications in biotechnology. In biological sensor technology the coating of surfaces to prevent nonspecific adsorption interactions plays an important role. Particularly, polyethylene glycol (PEG) stands out for its high performance in preventing proteins from nonspecifically interactions. However, blocking agents such as the protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) can also be useful as unspecific binding prevention agents for passivation, without modification of the surface. Herein the influence of blocking agents as unspecific reaction components is investigated on the enhancements of selectivity from adenovirus-imprinted particles, whereas adenovirus was used as target species in molecular imprinting. Furthermore, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used for the first time as virus quantification approach in this context.

Electrochemical investigations for COVID-19 detection-A comparison with other viral detection methods

“…In molecular imprinting, the first step involves the interaction between cross-linking agents and the monomers in a suitable solvent with the templates; then following the arrangement of formed molecular assemblies by PCR around the template molecules, and finally removing the templates leaving behind the analyte selective binding moieties. Recently, extensive studies based on molecularly imprinted polymers have detected a wide range of species targeting proteins, cells and viruses [116] , [117] . These included different polymerization strategies such as surface imprinting (2D) and bulk imprinting (3D).…”

Molecularly imprinted materials for biomedical sensing

“…They are the smallest infection (Chandradoss et al, 2014). Gast et al (2018) developed Besides the successful development of MIPs for viruses, their design and synthesis are challenged by (i) the complexity of virus structures, which present a variety of functional groups with a large number of potential interaction sites, which could result in non-specific binding (Wulff, 2001), (ii) changes in the conformation of the virus template due to non-physiological polymerization conditions, which may affect the formation of selective sites (Gast et al, 2019), (iii) solubility of monomers and other polymerization components is limited to aqueous systems, which limit the monomer options and harms the imprinting efficiency, as water molecules compete for hydrogen bonding with monomers and templates (Ramström & Ansell, 1998) and (iv) the availability of pure and highly concentrated viruses, which requires sophisticated purification processes and appropriated laboratory equipment and trained personnel.…”

“…MIPs for several viruses have been presented in the last decade. The application of MIPs for virus recognition was recently reviewed by Gast et al (2019), and the most recent developments are highlighted inTable 2.Recent studies include MIPs for the recognition of human immunodeficiency virus p24 (HIV-p24)(Ma et al, 2017), influenza A (HK68) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV)(Karthik et al, 2015), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV)(Yang et al, 2020) and adenovirus(Gast et al, 2018).Ma et al (2017) developed a rapid, sensitive and simple procedure for the determination of human immunodeficiency virus p24 (HIV-p24) based on a MIP electrochemical sensor constructed on the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes modified glassy carbon electrode. The polymerization was performed using acrylamide as a functional monomer, N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide as a cross-linking agent and ammonium persulphate as initiator.…”

Advances in the development of molecularly imprinted polymers for the separation and analysis of proteins with liquid chromatography

“…These advances are providing the tools required to chart the road‐map for the de novo design and synthesis of MIPs suitable for proteins. It is anticipated that these new separation materials can be integrated with advanced detection devices useful for the selective recognition and analysis of a broad range of targets, not only single biomacromolecules such as proteins, double‐stranded DNA , single‐stranded DNA, and carbohydrates , but also for biomolecular assemblies, viruses , and cells .…”