Molecularly imprinted polymer for human viral pathogen detection

An Overview on Recent Advances in Biomimetic Sensors for the Detection of Perfluoroalkyl Substances

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of materials that have been widely used in the industrial production of a wide range of products. After decades of bioaccumulation in the environment, research has demonstrated that these compounds are toxic and potentially carcinogenic. Therefore, it is essential to map the extent of the problem to be able to remediate it properly in the next few decades. Current state-of-the-art detection platforms, however, are lab based and therefore too expensive and time-consuming for routine screening. Traditional biosensor tests based on, e.g., lateral flow assays may struggle with the low regulatory levels of PFAS (ng/mL), the complexity of environmental matrices and the presence of coexisting chemicals. Therefore, a lot of research effort has been directed towards the development of biomimetic receptors and their implementation into handheld, low-cost sensors. Numerous research groups have developed PFAS sensors based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) or aptamers. In order to transform these research efforts into tangible devices and implement them into environmental applications, it is necessary to provide an overview of these research efforts. This review aims to provide this overview and critically compare several technologies to each other to provide a recommendation for the direction of future research efforts focused on the development of the next generation of biomimetic PFAS sensors.

Novel Electrochemiluminescent Biosensor to Ultrasensitively Detect U94 Gene in Human Herpesvirus 6 Using Metal-Organic Framework-Based Nanoemitters Comprising Iridium(III) Complexes via One-Pot Coordination Reaction Strategy

The detection of the U94 gene in human herpesvirus 6 is crucial for early diagnosis of HHV-6 infections, which could induce acute febrile illness in infants. In this work, the first ultrasensitive electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensor for detecting U94 gene in Human Herpesvirus 6 was successfully designed by utilizing efficient novel metal-organic framework (MOF)-based ECL nanoemitters comprising iridium(III) complexes (Ir-ZIF-8-NH2) synthesized via one-pot coordination reaction strategy as an ECL indicator and a target-catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA) signal amplification strategy. The as-prepared ECL indicator Ir-ZIF-8-NH2 exhibited an approximately 2.7-fold ECL intensity compared with its small molecular analogue of emissive iridium(III) complex named IrppymIM formed by in situ coordination reaction between iridium(III) solvent complex and imidazole ligands. In addition, a target-catalyzed hairpin assembly (CHA) strategy was employed to further improve the sensitivity of the proposed ECL biosensor, which demonstrated a wide linear range from 1 fM to 1 μM and the limit of detection as low as 0.113 fM (S/N = 3). Significantly, this biosensor was successfully applied to detect U94 gene in plasmids and real virus samples. The recoveries were in the range of 97.0-109.0% for plasmids and 95.7-107.5% for real virus samples with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 1.87-2.53%. These satisfactory experimental results from the proposed ECL biosensor in this work would inevitably promote the development of new time/cost-effective and sensitive methods to detect HHV-6 with a major global health threat and substantial burden on healthcare in the future.

Molecularly Imprinted Polymer-Based Sensors for Protein Detection

The accurate detection of biological substances such as proteins has always been a hot topic in scientific research. Biomimetic sensors seek to imitate sensitive and selective mechanisms of biological systems and integrate these traits into applicable sensing platforms. Molecular imprinting technology has been extensively practiced in many domains, where it can produce various molecular recognition materials with specific recognition capabilities. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), dubbed plastic antibodies, are artificial receptors with high-affinity binding sites for a particular molecule or compound. MIPs for protein recognition are expected to have high affinity via numerous interactions between polymer matrices and multiple functional groups of the target protein. This critical review briefly describes recent advances in the synthesis, characterization, and application of MIP-based sensor platforms used to detect proteins.

Development of a New Electrochemical Sensor Based on Molecularly Imprinted Biopolymer for Determination of 4,4'-Methylene Diphenyl Diamine

A new molecularly imprinted electrochemical sensor was proposed to determine 4,4'-methylene diphenyl diamine (MDA) using molecularly imprinted polymer-multiwalled carbon nanotubes modified glassy carbon electrode (MIP/MWCNTs/GCE). GCE was coated by MWCNTs (MWCNTs/GCE) because of their antifouling qualities and in order to improve the sensor sensitivity. To make the whole sensor, a polymeric film made up of chitosan nanoparticles was electrodeposited by the cyclic voltammetry method on the surface of MWCNTs/GCE in the presence of MDA as a template. Different parameters such as scan cycles, elution time, incubation time, molar ratio of template molecules to functional monomers, and pH were optimized to increase the performance of the MIP sensor. With a detection limit of 15 nM, a linear response to MDA was seen in the concentration range of 0.5-100 µM. The imprinting factor (IF) of the proposed sensor was also calculated at around 3.66, demonstrating the extremely high recognition performance of a MIP/MWCNT-modified electrode. Moreover, the sensor exhibited good reproducibility and selectivity. Finally, the proposed sensor was efficiently used to determine MDA in real samples with satisfactory recoveries ranging from 94.10% to 106.76%.

Recent trends and advancements in electrochemiluminescence biosensors for human virus detection

Researchers are constantly looking to find new techniques of virus detection that are sensitive, cost-effective, and accurate. Additionally, they can be used as a point-of-care (POC) tool due to the fact that the populace is growing at a quick tempo, and epidemics are materializing greater often than ever. Electrochemiluminescence-based (ECL) biosensors for the detection of viruses have become one of the most quickly developing sensors in this field. Thus, we here focus on recent trends and developments of these sensors with regard to virus detection. Also, quantitative analysis of various viruses (e.g., Influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2, HIV, HPV, Hepatitis virus, and Zika virus) with a specific interest in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was introduced from the perspective of the biomarker and the biological receptor immobilized on the ECL-based sensors, such as nucleic acids-based, immunosensors, and other affinity ECL biosensors.

Evaluation of electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymers (E-MIPs) on disposable electrodes for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in saliva

We investigate electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymers (E-MIPs) for the selective recognition of SARS-CoV-2 whole virus. E-MIPs imprinted with SARS-CoV-2 pseudoparticles (pps) were electrochemically deposited onto screen printed electrodes by reductive electropolymerization, using the water-soluble N-hydroxmethylacrylamide (NHMA) as functional monomer and crosslinked with N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBAm). E-MIPs for SARS-CoV-2 showed selectivity for template SARS-CoV-2 pps, with an imprinting factor of 3:1, and specificity (significance = 0.06) when cross-reacted with other respiratory viruses. E-MIPs detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2 pps in <10 min with a limit of detection of 4.9 log10 pfu/mL, suggesting their suitability for detection of SARS-CoV-2 with minimal sample preparation. Using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and principal component analysis (PCA), the capture of SARS-CoV-2 from real patient saliva samples was also evaluated. Fifteen confirmed COVID-19 positive and nine COVID-19 negative saliva samples were compared against the established loop-mediated isothermal nucleic acid amplification (LAMP) technique used by the UK National Health Service. EIS data demonstrated a PCA discrimination between positive and negative LAMP samples. A threshold real impedance signal (ZRe) ≫ 4000 Ω and a corresponding charge transfer resistance (RCT) ≫ 6000 Ω was indicative of absence of virus (COVID-19 negative) in agreement with values obtained for our control non-imprinted polymer control. A ZRe at or below a threshold value of 600 Ω with a corresponding RCT of <1200 Ω was indicative of a COVID-19 positive sample. The presence of virus was confirmed by treatment of E-MIPs with a SARS-CoV-2 specific monoclonal antibody.

Recent Advances in Plasma-Engineered Polymers for Biomarker-Based Viral Detection and Highly Multiplexed Analysis

Infectious diseases remain a pervasive threat to global and public health, especially in many countries and rural urban areas. The main causes of such severe diseases are the lack of appropriate analytical methods and subsequent treatment strategies due to limited access to centralized and equipped medical centers for detection. Rapid and accurate diagnosis in biomedicine and healthcare is essential for the effective treatment of pathogenic viruses as well as early detection. Plasma-engineered polymers are used worldwide for viral infections in conjunction with molecular detection of biomarkers. Plasma-engineered polymers for biomarker-based viral detection are generally inexpensive and offer great potential. For biomarker-based virus detection, plasma-based polymers appear to be potential biological probes and have been used directly with physiological components to perform highly multiplexed analyses simultaneously. The simultaneous measurement of multiple clinical parameters from the same sample volume is possible using highly multiplexed analysis to detect human viral infections, thereby reducing the time and cost required to collect each data point. This article reviews recent studies on the efficacy of plasma-engineered polymers as a detection method against human pandemic viruses. In this review study, we examine polymer biomarkers, plasma-engineered polymers, highly multiplexed analyses for viral infections, and recent applications of polymer-based biomarkers for virus detection. Finally, we provide an outlook on recent advances in the field of plasma-engineered polymers for biomarker-based virus detection and highly multiplexed analysis.

Recent Advances in Quartz Crystal Microbalance Biosensors Based on the Molecular Imprinting Technique for Disease-Related Biomarkers

The molecular imprinting technique is a quickly developing field of interest regarding the synthesis of artificial recognition elements that enable the specific determination of target molecule/analyte from a matrix. Recently, these smart materials can be successfully applied to biomolecule detection in biomimetic biosensors. These biosensors contain a biorecognition element (a bioreceptor) and a transducer, like their biosensor analogs. Here, the basic difference is that molecular imprinting-based biosensors use a synthetic recognition element. Molecular imprinting polymers used as the artificial recognition elements in biosensor platforms are complementary in shape, size, specific binding sites, and functionality to their template analytes. Recent progress in biomolecular recognition has supplied extra diagnostic and treatment methods for various diseases. Cost-effective, more robust, and high-throughput assays are needed for monitoring biomarkers in clinical settings. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) biosensors are promising tools for the real-time and quick detection of biomolecules in the past two decades A quick, simple-to-use, and cheap biomarkers detection technology based on biosensors has been developed. This critical review presents current applications in molecular imprinting-based quartz crystal microbalance biosensors for the quantification of biomarkers for disease monitoring and diagnostic results.

Rotating Cylinder-Assisted Nanoimprint Lithography for Enhanced Chemisorbable Filtration Complemented by Molecularly Imprinted Polymers

Rotating cylindrical stamp-based nanoimprint technique has many advantages, including the continuous fabrication of intriguing micro/nanostructures and rapid pattern transfer on a large scale. Despite these advantages, the previous nanoimprint lithography has rarely been used for producing sophisticated nanoscale patterns on a non-planar substrate that has many extended applications. Here, the simple integration of nanoimprinting process with a help of a transparent stamp wrapped on the cylindrical roll and UV optical source in the core to enable high-throughput pattern transfer, particularly on a fabric substrate is demonstrated. Moreover, as a functional resin material, this innovative strategy involves a synergistic approach on the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymer, which are spatially organized free-standing perforated nanostructures such as nano/microscale lines, posts, and holes patterns on various woven or nonwoven blank substrates. The proposed materials can serve as a self-encoded filtration medium for selective separation of formaldehyde molecules. It is envisioned that the combinatorial fabrication process and attractive material paves the way for designing next-generation separation systems in use to capture industrial or household toxic substances.

Polymer-based nano-therapies to combat COVID-19 related respiratory injury: progress, prospects, and challenges

The recent coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has increased at an alarming rate, representing a substantial cause of mortality worldwide. Respiratory injuries are major COVID-19 related complications, leading to poor lung circulation, tissue scarring, and airway obstruction. Despite an in-depth investigation of respiratory injury's molecular pathogenesis, effective treatments have yet to be developed. Moreover, early detection of viral infection is required to halt the disease-related long-term complications, including respiratory injuries. The currently employed detection technique (quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction or qRT-PCR) failed to meet this need at some point because it is costly, time-consuming, and requires higher expertise and technical skills. Polymer-based nanobiosensing techniques can be employed to overcome these limitations. Polymeric nanomaterials have the potential for clinical applications due to their versatile features like low cytotoxicity, biodegradability, bioavailability, biocompatibility, and specific delivery at the targeted site of action. In recent years, innovative polymeric nanomedicine approaches have been developed to deliver therapeutic agents and support tissue growth for the inflamed organs, including the lung. This review highlights the most recent advances of polymer-based nanomedicine approaches in infectious disease diagnosis and treatments. This paper also focuses on the potential of novel nanomedicine techniques that may prove to be therapeutically efficient in fighting against COVID-19 related respiratory injuries.

Thin Film Plastic Antibody-Based Microplate Assay for Human Serum Albumin Determination

Herein we demonstrate molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) as plastic antibodies for a microplate-based assay. As the most abundant plasma protein, human serum albumin (HSA) was selected as the target analyte model. Thin film MIP was synthesized by the surface molecular imprinting approach using HSA as the template. The optimized polymer consisted of acrylic acid (AA) and N-vinylpyrrolidone (VP) in a 2:3 (w/w) ratio, crosslinked with N,N'-(1,2-dihydroxyethylene) bisacrylamide (DHEBA) and then coated on the microplate well. The binding of MIP toward the bound HSA was achieved via the Bradford reaction. The assay revealed a dynamic detection range toward HSA standards in the clinically relevant 1-10 g/dL range, with a 0.01 g/dL detection limit. HSA-MIP showed minimal interference from other serum protein components: γ-globulin had 11% of the HSA response, α-globulin of high-density lipoprotein had 9%, and β-globulin of low-density lipoprotein had 7%. The analytical accuracy of the assay was 89-106% at the 95% confidence interval, with precision at 4-9%. The MIP-coated microplate was stored for 2 months at room temperature without losing its binding ability. The results suggest that the thin film plastic antibody system can be successfully applied to analytical/pseudoimmunological HSA determinations in clinical applications.

Wastewater-Based Epidemiology as an Early Warning System for the Spreading of SARS-CoV-2 and Its Mutations in the Population

New methodologies based on the principle of "sewage epidemiology" have been successfully applied before in the detection of illegal drugs. The study describes the idea of early detection of a virus, e.g., SARS-CoV-2, in wastewater in order to focus on the area of virus occurrence and supplement the results obtained from clinical examination. By monitoring temporal variation in viral loads in wastewater in combination with other analysis, a virus outbreak can be detected and its spread can be suppressed early. The use of biosensors for virus detection also seems to be an interesting application. Biosensors are highly sensitive, selective, and portable and offer a way for fast analysis. This manuscript provides an overview of the current situation in the area of wastewater analysis, including genetic sequencing regarding viral detection and the technological solution of an early warning system for wastewater monitoring based on biosensors.

An Overview of Bio-Inspired Intelligent Imprinted Polymers for Virus Determination

The molecular imprinting polymers (MIPs) have shown their potential in various applications including pharmaceuticals, chemical sensing and biosensing, medical diagnosis, and environmental related issues, owing to their artificial selective biomimetic recognition ability. Despite the challenges posed in the imprinting and recognition of biomacromolecules, the use of MIP for the imprinting of large biomolecular oragnism such as viruses is of huge interest because of the necessity of early diagnosis of virus-induced diseases for clinical and point-of-care (POC) purposes. Thus, many fascinating works have been documented in which such synthetic systems undoubtedly explore a variety of potential implementations, from virus elimination, purification, and diagnosis to virus and bacteria-borne disease therapy. This study is focused comprehensively on the fabrication strategies and their usage in many virus-imprinted works that have appeared in the literature. The drawbacks, challenges, and perspectives are also highlighted.

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers and Surface Imprinted Polymers Based Electrochemical Biosensor for Infectious Diseases

Owing to their merits of simple, fast, sensitive, and low cost, electrochemical biosensors have been widely used for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. As a critical element, the receptor determines the selectivity, stability, and accuracy of the electrochemical biosensors. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and surface imprinted polymers (SIPs) have great potential to be robust artificial receptors. Therefore, extensive studies have been reported to develop MIPs/SIPs for the detection of infectious diseases with high selectivity and reliability. In this review, we discuss mechanisms of recognition events between imprinted polymers with different biomarkers, such as signaling molecules, microbial toxins, viruses, and bacterial and fungal cells. Then, various preparation methods of MIPs/SIPs for electrochemical biosensors are summarized. Especially, the methods of electropolymerization and micro-contact imprinting are emphasized. Furthermore, applications of MIPs/SIPs based electrochemical biosensors for infectious disease detection are highlighted. At last, challenges and perspectives are discussed.

Virus detection using nanosensors

A smart city has a bright and sustainable way to integrate services together and can monitor/control them using intelligent devices called sensors to preserve the efficient utilization of resources. Sensors are distributed everywhere in smart cities. They can be employed to monitor health care, transportation, infrastructure, building, surveillance, government, etc. Especially, nanosensors hold great impact to turn the current techniques for the detection of viruses. With the facility of real-time sensing, there is no need for regular inspections for maintenance and surveying, which results in reduced costs and time wastage. Definitely, common sensing platforms need persistent updates to address increasing doubts in the detection of viruses as they modify quickly and spread from person to person, pointing the urgency of early detection. In this chapter the introduction is briefly described in Section 30.1. The fundamental of nanosensors is explained in Section 30.2. The significance and applications of nanosensors in virus detection are extensively discussed in Sections 30.3 and 30.4. Section 30.5 consists of various challenges and outlook.

Magnetic hyperbranched molecularly imprinted polymers for selective enrichment and determination of zearalenone in wheat proceeded by HPLC-DAD analysis

A novel magnetic surface molecular imprinted polymers with 2, 4, 6-trisacrylamido-3, 5-triazine (TAT) as a functional monomer was successfully synthesized and used for the enrichment and determination of zearalenone. The molecular imprinting is reported herein at first time for application of zearalenone in wheat. The magnetic imprinted materials possessed excellent magnetism and uniform appearance, which were characterized by fourier transform infared spectroscopy and transmission electron microscope. The results proved the magnetic molecular imprinted polymers was successfully prepared. The magnetic molecular imprinted polymers exhibited satisfactory sensitivity, stability and potential reusability. The binding affinity was investigated by selectivity experiment, which possessed high selectivity. To obtain the optimal application conditions, the amount of adsorption, extraction time, elution solvent and time were optimized. The limited detection of zearalenone was 0.55 ng g^-1 and the recoveries of zearalenone were 92.1-96.0%. The relative standard deviation was lower than 5.4%. This indicated that a simple, efficient and low-cost method was established and successfully applied in spiked wheat sample.

Evaluation of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers as Synthetic Virus Neutralizing Antibody Mimics

Rapid development of antibody-based therapeutics are crucial to the agenda of innovative manufacturing of macromolecular therapies to combat emergent diseases. Although highly specific, antibody therapies are costly to produce. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) constitute a rapidly-evolving class of antigen-recognition materials that act as synthetic antibodies. We report here on the virus neutralizing capacity of hydrogel-based MIPs. We produced MIPs using porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV-1), as a model mammalian virus. Assays were performed to evaluate the specificity of virus neutralization, the effect of incubation time and MIP concentration. Polyacrylamide and N-hydroxymethylacrylamide based MIPs produced a highly significant reduction in infectious viral titer recovered after treatment, reducing it to the limit of detection of the assay. MIP specificity was tested by comparing their neutralizing effects on PRRSV-1 to the effects on the unrelated bovine viral diarrhea virus-1; no significant cross-reactivity was observed. The MIPs demonstrated effective virus neutralization in just 2.5 min and their effect was concentration dependent. These data support the further evaluation of MIPs as synthetic antibodies as a novel approach to the treatment of viral infection.

An Alternative Medical Diagnosis Method: Biosensors for Virus Detection

Infectious diseases still pose an omnipresent threat to global and public health, especially in many countries and rural areas of cities. Underlying reasons of such serious maladies can be summarized as the paucity of appropriate analysis methods and subsequent treatment strategies due to the limited access of centralized and equipped health care facilities for diagnosis. Biosensors hold great impact to turn our current analytical methods into diagnostic strategies by restructuring their sensing module for the detection of biomolecules, especially nano-sized objects such as protein biomarkers and viruses. Unquestionably, current sensing platforms require continuous updates to address growing challenges in the diagnosis of viruses as viruses change quickly and spread largely from person-to-person, indicating the urgency of early diagnosis. Some of the challenges can be classified in biological barriers (specificity, low number of targets, and biological matrices) and technological limitations (detection limit, linear dynamic range, stability, and reliability), as well as economical aspects that limit their implementation into resource-scarce settings. In this review, the principle and types of biosensors and their applications in the diagnosis of distinct infectious diseases were comprehensively explained. The deployment of current biosensors into resource-scarce settings is further discussed for virus detection by elaborating the pros and cons of existing methods as a conclusion and future perspective.

Two different states conversion mechanism of the imprinting sites

Bisphenol A molecular imprinted adsorbent (BMIA) was successfully synthesized by a sol-gel process and showed a good specific binding performance in the water. The further studies showed that the mass transfer process was controlled by in-diffusion, and the synthesis conditions would effect on the amount of imprinting sites. Scatchard model analysis evidenced that the high binding affinity sites and the low binding affinity sites were both on BMIA, and the high binding affinity sites played a key role in the specific binding process. Scatchard model analysis of temperature effect experiments and dosage effect experiments proved that the specific binding sites with high binding affinity and the unexpressed specific binding sites with low binding affinity were the two different states of the imprinting binding sites. The conversion between the two different states depended on the reaction driving force, and the increasing reaction driving force would increase the number of specific binding sites. Especially, the temperature showed a linear positive correlation with the amount of specific binding sites. Finally, a possible model was put forward to explain the two different states conversion mechanism of the imprinting sites.

Synthesis and characterization of paclitaxel-imprinted microparticles for controlled release of an anticancer drug

In this study, novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) microparticles containing methacryl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (M-POSS) were synthesized through the RAFT precipitation polymerization (RAFTPP) method using paclitaxel (PTX) as the templates. During the course of this investigation, methacrylic acid (MAA) was used as the functional monomer, while ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) was utilized as a cross-linker. The effects of different molar ratios of M-POSS on the microparticles were characterized. The obtained MIP microparticles were confirmed by FT-IR and TGA-DSC. The results of SEM showed regular spherical-shaped MIP microparticles with diameters around 170-490 nm. The PTX loading quantity was closely correlated with the content of M-POSS, and the MIP microparticles showed a satisfactory affinity to PTX with high drug loading (17.1%) and encapsulation efficiency (85.5%). Moreover, these MIP microparticles were sensitive to pH, and consequently the release rates of PTX at pH 5 were much faster than those at pH 7 due to the acid cleavage of the hydrogen bonds. In addition, the results from release experiments of the MIP microparticles showed a very slow and controlled release of PTX, which heralded promising potential as a carrier for PTX delivery in cancer therapy.