Authors

Anura Shrestha

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

Polydiacetylene (PDA) is a polymer class consisting of double and triple bonds and is formed when diacetylene amphiphiles become closely packed and undergo UV polymerization. When properly designed, PDA forms vesicles, which, when stimulated, give a colorimetric change due to rotation of the ene-yne alternating backbone. PDA-based vesicles in which the pendant side-chains possess a recognition moiety for a target of interest have thus been implemented as biosensors for the successful detection of different biomolecules. Here we report a means for rapidly generating a PDA-based biosensor by direct solid-phase peptide synthesis of a peptide recognition moiety appended with 10,12 pentacosadiynoic acid. This study utilizes the well-known streptavidin-biotin interaction to demonstrate the sensor activation by ligand-receptor binding stimulus arising from the biotin-mimetic peptide VSHPQAPF, presented by the PDA vesicle when exposed to streptavidin to specifically investigate the capability of using these vesicles for agglutination assays.

Publication Date

12-1-2020

Language

English

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