Sialic Acid-Responsive Polymeric Interface Material: From Molecular Recognition to Macroscopic Property Switching

Yuting Xiong,Ge Jiang,Guangyan Qing,Xiuling Li,Taolei Sun,Xinmiao Liang,Minmin Li

doi:10.1038/srep40913

Abstract

Biological systems that utilize multiple weak non-covalent interactions and hierarchical assemblies to achieve various bio-functions bring much inspiration for the design of artificial biomaterials. However, it remains a big challenge to correlate underlying biomolecule interactions with macroscopic level of materials, for example, recognizing such weak interaction, further transforming it into regulating material’s macroscopic property and contributing to some new bio-applications. Here we designed a novel smart polymer based on polyacrylamide (PAM) grafted with lactose units (PAM-g-lactose0.11), and reported carbohydrate-carbohydrate interaction (CCI)-promoted macroscopic properties switching on this smart polymer surface. Detailed investigations indicated that the binding of sialic acid molecules with the grafted lactose units via the CCIs induced conformational transformation of the polymer chains, further resulted in remarkable and reversible switching in surface topography, wettability and stiffness. With these excellent recognition and response capacities towards sialic acid, the PAM-g-lactose0.11 further facilitated good selectivity, strong anti-interference and high adsorption capacity in the capture of sialylated glycopeptides (important biomarkers for cancers). This work provides some enlightenment for the development of biointerface materials with tunable property, as well as high-performance glycopeptide enrichment materials.

Highlights

Were mainly based on phenylboronic acid derivatives or phenylboronic acid-functionalized polymer[21,22], exhibiting to people a potential tool for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications related to cancers[23]
When the experiments were performed in formate-buffer solutions at pH 3.8, a remarkable increase in Ka was observed for the binding of lactose with Neu5Ac, giving a Ka value of 1.61 × 105 L · mol−1, which is almost 64 time larger than that in neutral solution, whereas no apparent change in Ka value was observed for other monosaccharides
Results displayed that lactose still exhibited considerably strong affinity towards Neu5Ac, relative to other three acidic analogues. This implied that lactose has a pH-dependent strong binding with Neu5Ac, which could not be attributed to the acidity of Neu5Ac itself

Summary

Introduction

Were mainly based on phenylboronic acid derivatives or phenylboronic acid-functionalized polymer[21,22], exhibiting to people a potential tool for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications related to cancers[23]. It remains a great challenge to extend these studies to a broader level, for example, developing a material to explore its dynamic behaviours in response to the recognition towards SA via CCIs at macroscopic level and to promote some new bio-applications. The graft polymer-modified silica gels (denoted as PAM-g-lactose0.11@SiO2) facilitated the high-efficiency enrichment of SGs with strong anti-interference capability and high adsorption capacity

Methods

Results

Conclusion