Department of Chemistry, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
Tekscan, Inc., 307 W. First St., Boston, MA 02127, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Apr 14;21(8):2757. doi: 10.3390/s21082757.
This perspective presents an overview of approaches to the preparation of molecular recognition agents for chemical sensing. These approaches include chemical synthesis, using catalysts from biological systems, partitioning, aptamers, antibodies and molecularly imprinted polymers. The latter three approaches are general in that they can be applied with a large number of analytes, both proteins and smaller molecules like drugs and hormones. Aptamers and antibodies bind analytes rapidly while molecularly imprinted polymers bind much more slowly. Most molecularly imprinted polymers, formed by polymerizing in the presence of a template, contain a high level of covalent crosslinker that causes the polymer to form a separate phase. This results in a material that is rigid with low affinity for analyte and slow binding kinetics. Our approach to templating is to use predominantly or exclusively noncovalent crosslinks. This results in soluble templated polymers that bind analyte rapidly with high affinity. The biggest challenge of this approach is that the chains are tangled when the templated polymer is dissolved in water, blocking access to binding sites.
本文概述了用于化学传感的分子识别试剂的制备方法。这些方法包括化学合成、利用生物体系中的催化剂、分配、适体、抗体和分子印迹聚合物。后三种方法具有通用性，因为它们可以用于大量的分析物，包括蛋白质和较小的分子，如药物和激素。适体和抗体快速结合分析物，而分子印迹聚合物则结合得慢得多。大多数分子印迹聚合物是在模板存在下聚合形成的，其中含有高水平的共价交联剂，导致聚合物形成单独的相。这导致材料具有刚性，对分析物的亲和力低，结合动力学慢。我们的模板方法主要或完全使用非共价交联。这导致形成可溶性的模板聚合物，该聚合物与分析物快速结合，具有高亲和力。这种方法最大的挑战是，当模板聚合物溶解在水中时，链会缠结，从而阻止结合位点的进入。
