Designing Glycoprotein Films and Micelles to Capture and Remove Pathogens from Aqueous Suspensions
July 2012
Elaine H. Mullen, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
This paper describes transparent, detergent-resistant glycoprotein films that have been developed
to help characterize disease-causing pathogens, as well as to help prevent infection. Such films
are coated on one face with oil, and on the opposite face with branching carbohydrates that bind
to complementary adhesive proteins (lectins) on surfaces of pathogens and biotoxins. When
agitated, glycoprotein films form stable, oil-filled micelles that float and sort by diameter within
a vertical column of aqueous fluid. Glycoprotein film-coated micelles can be used to remove
pathogens and biotoxins from contaminated fluids, and represent novel visualization tools that
can be color-coded and used to detect the presence of lectin adhesins and hemagglutinins that
bind to tissue-specific targets or "glycotopes" during the process of infection. Glycoprotein
micelles coated with multivalent lectin molecules constitute another set of tools that bind to
complementary carbohydrates on a variety of structures ranging from glycoprotein molecules
to bacterial spore coats and animal cell membranes. These flexible structures offer an additional
means of capturing and removing pathogens and biotoxin molecules from contaminated fluids
and surfaces, and might also be applied to the study of glycosylation patterns on epithelial cells
of human tissue.
Additional Search Keywords
glycoprotein films, glycoprotein micelles, disease causing pathogens, infections
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