SENSITIVE DETECTION OF PROSTATE SPECIFIC ANTIGEN BY MOLECULARLY IMPRINTED POLYMERS PREPARED VIA POST-IMPRINTING MODIFICATIONS

A blood level of prostate specific antigen (PSA) is known to increases in the onset of prostate cancer, therefore a concentration of PSA in blood streams is measured to diagnose PSA. However, PSA may increase even in diseases such as prostatic hyperplasia and prostatitis, making the situation confused. For this reason, it is required to fabricate a device capable of highly sensitive and selectively detection of PSA. Commonly, antibodies have been used for the detection of PSA, whereas they are problematic due to chemical and physical instability and high production costs. To solve these problems, artificial polymer receptors have been intensively studied for the replacement of antibodies.

We have been studied molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) as artificial molecule recognition materials,¹ and recently, developed a new strategy to prepare multi-functionalized MIPs, post imprinting modification (PIM), which can selectively modify the functionality in MIPs afterward the formation of the molecular recognition cavities.² The MIPs with highly selectivity for α-fetoprotein, a biomarker protein for liver cancer, were prepared by introducing appropriate interaction groups into the cavities by the PIM method.³

In this study, MIPs were designed and synthesized via PIM treatments to specifically recognize and detect PSA. The multipoint recognition effect, glycans of PSA and amino acid residues on PSA, was demonstrated by the first step PIM. The following the second PIM made the binding activity detectable by introducing a fluorescent reporter molecule. High sensitivity and selective detection of PSA was achieved using the present multi-PIM strategy.

References

[1] Takeuchi, T., Hayashi, T., Ichikawa, S., Kaji, A., Masui, M., Matsumoto, H., Sasao, R. Chromatography 2016, 37, 43-64

[2] Takeuchi, T., Mori, T., Kuwahara, A., Ohta, T., Oshita, A., Sunayama, H., Kitayama Y., Ooya, T. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 12765-12770.

[3] Horikawa, R., Sunayama, H., Kitayama, Y. Takano, E., Takeuchi, T., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 13023-13027.