Engineered polymer nanoparticles incorporating L-amino acid groups as affinity reagents for fibrinogen

Synthetic polymer hydrogel nanoparticles(NPs)were developed to function as abiotic affinity reagents for fibrinogen.These NPs were made using both temperature-sensitive N-isopropyl acrylamide(NIPAm)and L-amino acid monomers.Five kinds of L-amino acids were acryloylated to obtain functional monomers:L-phenylalanine(Phe)and L-leucine(Leu)with hydrophobic side chains,L-glutamic acid(Glu)with negative charges,and L-lysine(Lys)and L-arginine(Arg)with positive charges.After incubating the NPs with fibrinogen,g-globulin,and human serum albumin(HSA)respectively,the NPs that incorporated Nacryloyl-Arg monomers(AArg@NPs)showed the strongest and most specific binding affinity to fibrinogen,when compared with g-globulin and HSA.Additionally,the fibrinogen-AArg binding model had the best docking scores,and this may be due to the interaction of positively charged AArg@NPs and the negatively charged fibrinogen D domain and the hydrophobic interaction between them.The specific adsorption of AArg@NPs to fibrinogen was also confirmed by the immunoprecipitation assay,as the AArg@NPs selectively trapped the fibrinogen from a human plasma protein mixture.AArg@NPs had a strong selectivity for,and specificity to,fibrinogen and may be developed as a potential human fibrinogen-specific affinity reagent.