Pathogen-sensing with novel poly(aryleneethynylene)s

描述（由申请人提供）：提出了利用荧光糖取代的导电聚合物聚（亚芳基乙炔）（PAE）对凝集素进行特异性传感和检测。凝集素是与多位点碳水化合物展示结合的蛋白质。凝集素在生物恐怖主义威胁以及传染病传播的早期事件中发挥重要作用。对生物恐怖主义威胁最重要的凝集素是蓖麻毒素、霍乱毒素和炭疽毒素中的糖识别单位。虽然毒素的碳水化合物识别凝集素亚基本身没有毒性，但它们调节毒素对细胞的附着和识别。PAE类型的导电（或更准确地说半导电）聚合物是高度有色的，即根据它们所处的化学环境改变它们的颜色/发射。它们有多个糖和碳水化合物的附着点。糖取代的PAE与凝集素的相互作用应导致PAE与蛋白质的紧密结合。结合事件将改变PAE骨架的构象，因此将存在比色响应，即PAE的颜色和发射的变化。色性和多面性的组合使得PAEs几乎成为感测基于凝集素的病原体的理想候选物。由于其高效的荧光，微量的PAEs将是必要的，以检测少量的凝集素。为了提高效率，还提出利用固定在珠上的PAE来进行凝集素的感测。该提案的一个重要目标是确定/优化所提出的糖取代的PAE的灵敏度和特异性。 然而，糖取代的PAEs应该是一个非常简单和强大的补充方法，用于检测凝集素为基础的病原体蓖麻毒素，霍乱毒素和炭疽PA因子。感测事件应该通过简单的检查可检测到，或者在更复杂的情况下，将利用简单的荧光光谱仪。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The specific sensing and detection of lectins utilizing fluorescent sugar-substituted conducting polymers, poly(aryleneethynylene)s (PAE), is proposed. Lectins are proteins that bind to multitopic carbohydrate displays. Lectins play an important role in both bioterrorist threats as well as in early events of infectious disease transmission. The lectins that are most important for bioterrorist threats are ricin, cholera toxin, and a sugar-recognizing unit in the anthrax toxin. While the carbohydrate-recognizing lectin subunits of the toxins themselves are not toxic, they modulate the attachment and recognition of toxins to the cells. Conducting (or more precisely semiconducting) polymers of the PAE type are highly chromatic, i.e. change their color/emission depending upon the chemical surrounding they are. They have multiple attachment points for sugars and carbohydrates. Interaction of sugar-substituted PAEs with lectins should lead to a tight binding of the PAE to the protein. The binding event will change the conformation of the backbone of the PAE and thus there will be a colorimetric response, i.e. a change in color and emission of the PAE. The combination of chromicity and multitopicity make the PAEs almost ideal candidates for the sensing of lectin-based pathogens. Due to their efficient fluorescence, minute amounts of PAEs will be necessary to detect small quantities of lectins. To increase efficiency it is as well proposed to utilize PAEs immobilized on a bead to conduct the sensing of lectins. An important goal of this proposal is to determine/optimize sensitivity and specifity of the proposed sugar-substituted PAEs. However, sugar-substituted PAEs should be a very simple and powerful complementary method for the detection of the lectin-based pathogens Ricin, Cholera toxin, and the PA factor of anthrax. The sensing event should be detectable by simple inspection, or in more sophisticated cases a simple fluorescence spectrometer will be utilized.