Protein Denaturation Through the Use of Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Nanoparticles.

Charlotte Boitard,Nébéwia Griffete,Aude Michel,Christine Ménager

doi:10.3390/molecules26133980

Abstract

The inhibition of the protein function for therapeutic applications remains challenging despite progress these past years. While the targeting application of molecularly imprinted polymer are in their infancy, no use was ever made of their magnetic hyperthermia properties to damage proteins when they are coupled to magnetic nanoparticles. Therefore, we have developed a facile and effective method to synthesize magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles using the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as the template, a bulk imprinting of proteins combined with a grafting approach onto maghemite nanoparticles. The hybrid material exhibits very high adsorption capacities and very strong affinity constants towards GFP. We show that the heat generated locally upon alternative magnetic field is responsible of the decrease of fluorescence intensity.

Highlights

Results and Discussion γ-Fe2 O3 @Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP)-green fluorescent protein (GFP) nano-objects were synthesized in three steps, as displayed in Figure 1a [29]
After synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles using a co-precipitation method, they were functionalized with an initiation-transfer-termination agent [30] and mixed with pre-polymerization complexes composed of GFP and acrylamide
Polymerization was allowed to proceed at room temperature in water, and magnetic non-imprinted polymers (NIP) were synthesized the same way, without the GFP

Summary

Introduction

Cell targeting as well as the inhibition of the protein function are still challenging nowadays. Systems that are able to both target cancer specific proteins at the tumor place, if we accumulate them, inhibit the protein by modifying their three-dimensional configuration, easy to determine and fast to produce, could be formidable tools to overcome these limitations. Imprinted polymers (MIP), able to bind molecules of interest only by knowing their structure, seem to perfectly fit these requirements. They act as synthetic antibodies [11,12], because of the specific interactions between functional monomers and template protein, which will lead to the formation of the so-called imprints

Methods

Results

Conclusion