Technical Report for DE-FG02-03ER46029 Sugar-Coated PPEs, Novel Nanomaterials and Sensing Modules for Disease and Bioterrorism Related Threats

Bunz, Uwe

University of South Carolina (United States)

关键词: 98 Nuclear Disarmament, Safeguards, And Physical Protection;    Diseases;    Cholera;    36 Materials Science;    Sensors;   

DOI  :  10.2172/813548
RP-ID  :  Final Report
RP-ID  :  FG02-03ER46029
RP-ID  :  813548

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The detection and sensing of biological warfare agents (Ricin, Anthrax toxin), of disease agents (cholera, botulinum and tetanus toxins, influenza virus etc) and of biologically active species is important for national security and disease control. A premiere goal would be the simple colorimetric or fluorimetric detection of such toxins by a dipstick test. It would be desirable to sense 5,000-10,000 toxin molecules, i.e. 10-100 fg of a toxin contained 1-5 mL of sample. Fluorescent conjugated polymers should be particularly interesting in this regard, because they can carry multiple identical and/or different recognition units. Such an approach is particularly valuable for the detection of lectin toxins, because these bind to oligomeric carbohydrate displays. Lectins bind multivalently to sugars, i.e. several covalently connected sugar moieties have to be exposed to the lectin at the same time to obtain binding. The requirement of multivalency of the lectin-sugar interactions should allow a very sensitive detection of lectins with sugar coated conjugated polymers in an agglutination type assay, where the fluorescence of the PPEs disappears upon binding to the lectins. High molecular weights of the used PPEs would mean high sensitivity. Herein we present our progress towards that goal up to date.