Plasmonic Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein with Polymer-Stabilized Glycosylated Gold Nanorods.

Panagiotis G Georgiou,Dimitris Grammatopoulos,Alexander N Baker,Muhammad Hasan,Sarojini Pandey,Marc Walker,Neil R Anderson,Ashfaq Ahmad,Neer V Thakkar,Matthew I Gibson,Collette S Guy,Sarah-Jane Richards

doi:10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00716

Panagiotis G Georgiou, Dimitris Grammatopoulos + Show 10 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.1c00716

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative biosensing, diagnostic, and surveillance platforms. Here we report that glycosylated, polymer-stabilized, gold nanorods can bind the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and show correlation to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in primary COVID-19 clinical samples. Telechelic polymers were prepared by reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization, enabling the capture of 2,3-sialyllactose and immobilization onto gold nanorods. Control experiments with a panel of lectins and a galactosamine-terminated polymer confirmed the selective binding. The glycosylated rods were shown to give dose-dependent responses against recombinant truncated SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and the responses were further correlated using primary patient swab samples. The essentiality of the anisotropic particles for reducing the background interference is demonstrated. This highlights the utility of polymer tethering of glycans for plasmonic biosensors of infection.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for innovative biosensing, diagnostic, and surveillance platforms
Many coronaviruses[6,7] including Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)[8,9] bind sialic acids, and we recently discovered that SARS-CoV-2 can bind N-acetyl neuraminic acid (NeuNAc).[10,11]
It is notable that other glycan-binding functions of SARS-CoV2 are emerging,[15−17] but there is much to understand about its glycobiology, and new tools to explore glycobiology are needed

Summary

Author Contributions

M.I.G., P.G.G., N.R.A., and D.G. devised experiments and oversaw the research. P.G.G., C.S.G., M.H., A.A., S.-J.R., A.N.B., N.V.T., and M.W. conducted the experiments. C.S.G. and S.-J.R. conducted all spectroscopic assays with lentiviral and clinical swab samples. M.H. and A.A. expressed and purified the spike protein. A.N.B., N.V.T., and M.W. performed XPS studies of glycosylated nanomaterials. S.P., N.R.A., and D.G. undertook clinical swab sample testing collected from symptomatic staff/patients. P.G.G. and M.I.G. wrote the manuscript, and all others contributed to revisions

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