Molecular recognition processes are involved in almost every aspect of biological interactions, ranging from enzyme-substrate recognition up to DNA replication and translation. The very same recognition processes are exploited for in vitro diagnostics and therapeutic applications by using biologically-derived materials such as antibodies and natural receptors, which unfortunately are hindered by several drawbacks, not least their expensive production and poor stability. It is not surprising, then, that a considerable portion of nowadays research is directed towards the investigation and production of man-made materials capable of mimicking these molecular recognition processes. Amongst these materials, molecular imprinting polymers (MIPs) represent generic alternatives to antibodies and receptors in diagnostics and separation. MIPs, however, have always promised more than they could actually deliver, due to production issues and batch-to-batch performance variations. At least until recently. Indeed, the development of a new solid-phase synthesis technology for the production of MIP nanoparticles (MIP NPs) allows for the first time reliable manufacturing of water-dispersible “synthetic antibodies” with narrow size distributions. These MIP NPs exhibit many advantages in comparison to natural antibodies, since they can be imprinted for virtually any type of compound (ranging from small molecules to proteins). Moreover, the solid-phase synthesis process can be completely automated, thus minimising manual intervention, shortening processing times, and opening the technology to non-specialists as well as to potential full-scale industrial production whilst maintaining a competitive cost. Thanks to the flexibility of the synthetic process, even “custom-made” monomers (i.e. nucleosides or DNA strands), have been used to produce the first “hybrid” DNA-MIP NPs. In all cases the affinity of MIP NPs is at the nanomolar or sub-nanomolar level. With this new development in MIP synthesis we foresee a time when the application of natural antibodies will be challenged by new assays, sensors or even therapies based on stable and inexpensive “synthetic antibodies”.

Synthetic antibodies

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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