Iodo Silanes as Superior Substrates for the Solid Phase Synthesis of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Nanoparticles

• Published in: Polymers Vol. 14; no. 8; p. 1595
• Main Authors: Piletsky, Stanislav S, Garcia Cruz, Alvaro, Piletska, Elena, Piletsky, Sergey A, Aboagye, Eric O, Spivey, Alan C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 14-04-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Affinity; Binding sites; Biomarkers; epidermal growth factor receptor; Ethanol; Growth factors; Imprinted polymers; molecularly imprinted polymers; Nanoparticles; Peptides; Polymers; Purity; Silanes; Sodium; Solid phase synthesis; Substrates; United Kingdom > UK; solid phase synthesis; epidermal growth factor receptor; molecularly imprinted polymers
• ISSN: 2073-4360; 2073-4360
• DOI: 10.3390/polym14081595

Current state-of-the-art techniques for the solid phase synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles typically rely on amino silanes for the immobilisation of template molecules prior to polymerisation. An investigation into commonly used amino silanes identified a number of problematic side reactions which negatively affect the purity and affinity of these polymers. Iodo silanes are presented as a superior alternative in a case study describing the synthesis of MIPs against epitopes of a common cancer biomarker, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The proposed iodo silane outperformed the amino silane by all metrics tested, showing high purity and specificity, and nanomolar affinity for the target peptide.