Protein immobilisation represents nowadays one of the most challenging fields in science and many technologies have been developed to meet a wide range of needs. Biosensors and biointerfaces, using the interaction of the protein with glucose, DNA or antibody are only a few examples of the huge amount of applications related to the concept of protein immobilisation. In spite of many signs of progress in the field, the best method to immobilise proteins on surfaces is still not well defined. The surface immobilisation of proteins is currently obtained mostly through covalent immobilisation or physical adsorption. Both methods, even considering the huge amount of applications they can have, still present some disadvantages. The supramolecular chemistry has the potential to overcome all these problems in a very elegant, fast and simple way by employing the host-guest interaction between a scaffold molecule and a protein. In this work, the host-guest interaction is enabled by a single step bottom-up nanofabrication of single-type self-assembled monolayers comprising cyclodextrin and cucurbituril moieties, which act as host molecules. On the other side, cytochrome C, insulin, alfa-chymotrypsin and RNase are used as representative guest proteins. The self-assembled monolayer of a single-type molecule was achieved with good surface packing as determined by contact angle, ellipsometry and cyclic voltammetry. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) studies were conducted and supramolecular surfaces are shown to provide high affinity binding to the representative guest proteins. These results are supported by computational studies where, by the interaction understanding of a single amino-acid with the cyclodextrin moieties, it was possible also to predict the potential protein interaction points with the supramolecular surface. Furthermore, the SPR results also show the possibility to reuse the surface multiple times by releasing the protein previously immobilised on it.

Supramolecular surfaces for protein immobilisation

256th National Meeting (2018)

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