Twenty years since ‘antibody mimics’ by molecular imprinting were first proposed: A critical perspective

Abstract

In February 1993, the group of Klaus Mosbach published their milestone study in Nature where, for the first time, non-covalent molecular imprints were employed in a competitive binding assay. In this seminal piece of work, and also for the first time, they refer to molecularly imprinted polymers as being 'antibody mimics' and hypothesised that these synthetic materials could one day provide 'a useful, general alternative to antibodies'. This perspective article examines how far we have come in the 20 years since this publication in terms of realising this hypothesis and poses the question of whether we actually need molecularly imprinted polymers to be a general alternative to antibodies.

Stoichiometric molecularly imprinted polymers for the recognition of anti-cancer pro-drug tegafur

“…Our strategy was based on the technique of molecular imprinting, according to which a three-dimensional synthetic polymer network is formed in the presence of a target substance, thus embedding binding pockets complementary to the latter in terms of size, shape and functional group orientation. The resulting materials are capable of reversibly binding the so-called template or closely related substances from complex mixtures, rendering them robust, reusable and inexpensive alternatives to affinity phases based on natural receptors, such as enzymes and antibodies [7][8][9].…”

Perspectives on the discovery of NOTCH2‐specific inhibitors

“…We propose that synthetic antibody mimic (SyAM)‐derived molecules comprised of stapled or stable peptides united by an inert polymer (i.e., “tethered peptides”) could replace current anti‐NRR mAb‐based Notch inhibitors. Since their discovery over 20 years ago, research on SyAMs has exploded, demonstrating increased stability and easier production at the expense of reduced binding affinity than their cognate antibodies . At less than 5% of the molecular weight of mAbs, SyAMs would also confer the benefit of increased tissue penetration .…”

Efficient one-pot synthesis of hydrophilic and fluorescent molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles for direct drug quantification in real biological samples

“…The finding we report here represents, to our knowledge, the first successful example of the one-pot generation of highly cross-linked fluorescent polymer or MIP nanoparticles with surface-grafted hydrophilic polymer brushes. Moreover, it also represents an important progress for molecular imprinting technology, since direct and rapid quantification of small organic analytes in complex biological media has long been a challenging dream in this field (Bowen et al, 2013;Pichon and Chapuis-Hugon, 2008;Vlatakis et al, 1993).…”