Poly(PentaFluoroPhenyl Acrylate) (poly(PFPA)) is known to have high and selective reactivity with amine functional groups that offers facile routes to realize diverse functions starting from the same platforms. Amine-rich biomolecules such as antibodies and other functional proteins could be easily immobilized on the surfaces based on poly(PFPA), which would be a key step for many bioapplications. In this presentation, we present the poly(PFPA) brush-based platforms for antibody-antigen precipitation or immunoprecipitation (IP), which are routinely performed by biologists to isolate specific antigens and to identify their interactors from complex protein mixtures. The conventional approach involving agarose supports shows reasonably good antibody-binding capability due to their selective bioaffinity immobilization, but often suffers from high nonspecific binding and antibody contamination. We prepared silica nanospheres containing poly(PFPA) brushes, prepared by the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (SI-RAFT) polymerization. Upon sequential functionalization with antibodies and polyethylene glycol (PEG), it showed significantly reduced nonspecific protein adsorption and complete elimination of antibody contamination. Furthermore, by optimizing the two parameters such as molecular weight of the polymer brushes and the amount of PEG passivates, the poly(PFPA) brush-grafted particles show the highest efficiency. Taking into account their versatility and convenient features of such reactive brush platforms, the poly(PFPA) platforms have the potential to be an alternative to traditional agarose-based platforms for immunoprecipitation.

Reactive polymer brush-grafted particles as platforms for protein immobilization

254th National Meeting (2017)

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