2026-05-24T22:39:11Z https://www.peertechzpublications.org/oai-pmh

oai:www.peertechzpublications.org:10.17352/gjbbs.000009 2017-04-14 PTZ.GJBBS:VOL3

A Protocol for the Computational Design of High Affi nity Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Synthetic Receptors Kal Karim Todd Cowen Antonio Guerreiro Elena Piletska Michael J WhitcombeSergey A Piletsky<p>Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles, commonly referred to as ‘plastic antibodies’ or synthetic receptors, are polymeric materials with strong affinity and selectivity for a particular chemical target.MIPs are regularly produced for use in sensors for monitoring food quality and environmental&nbsp; pollutants,&nbsp; and&nbsp; in&nbsp; the&nbsp; design&nbsp; of&nbsp; robust&nbsp; and&nbsp; affordable&nbsp; replacements&nbsp; for&nbsp; biological&nbsp; receptors,&nbsp; enzymes and&nbsp; antibodies&nbsp; in&nbsp; drug&nbsp; testing&nbsp; and&nbsp; assays.&nbsp; More&nbsp; recently&nbsp; the&nbsp; easy&nbsp; production&nbsp; of&nbsp; MIP&nbsp; nanoparticles has also permitted research relating to possible in vivo applications, primarily in drug delivery systems, toxin sequestration and pathogen inhibition. The strength of the interaction between the target and the polymer binding site is dependent on the particular monomers selected in synthesis of the MIP, and the relative&nbsp; concentrations&nbsp; of&nbsp; these in the pre-polymerization&nbsp; mixture.&nbsp; While&nbsp; computational&nbsp; approaches have been used to aid in MIP design previously, the methods adopted are often slow and&nbsp; simplistic,centring on observations of the template structure with a couple of functional monomers presumed to be appropriate. We present here an automated method of rapidly screening numerous functional monomers and&nbsp; effectively&nbsp; determining&nbsp; appropriate&nbsp; monomer&nbsp; ratios,&nbsp; while&nbsp; accounting&nbsp; for&nbsp; spatial&nbsp; discrimination in&nbsp; selection&nbsp; and&nbsp; dynamic&nbsp; parameters&nbsp; in&nbsp; optimization.&nbsp; Example&nbsp; are&nbsp; then&nbsp; given&nbsp; of&nbsp; effect&nbsp; MIP&nbsp; synthesis resulting from the protocol, and the benefits of this approach over competing methods are discussed.</p> Global Journal of Biotechnology and Biomaterial Science - Peertechz Publications 2017-04-14 Short Communication https://doi.org/10.17352/gjbbs.000009 en Copyright © Kal Karim et al.