Sergey A Piletsky

University of Leicester | LE · Department of Chemistry

Enzymes are highly complex nanomachines produced by cells with the ability to catalyse diverse chemical reactions. Their applications in biotechnology and molecular diagnostics are widespread. However, most enzymes suffer from poor operational and storage stability and high manufacturing costs. Identifying suitable enzyme for particular substrates...

A handheld smartphone-compatible molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP)-based sensor was developed for the analysis of bisphenol A (BPA) in wastewater samples. Sensing elements based on ethylene glycol methacrylate phosphate (EGMP)-containing MIP films were designed and optimized using molecular dynamics simulations. The highly porous MIP films were s...

Correction for ‘An impedimetric sensor based on molecularly imprinted nanoparticles for the determination of trypsin in artificial matrices – towards point-of-care diagnostics’ by Sabrina Di Masi et al., Anal. Methods , 2024, 16 , 742–750, https://doi.org/10.1039/D3AY01762A.

A high-performance impedimetric sensing platform was designed to detect protein by employing molecularly imprinted polymeric nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) as selective receptor. This was achieved via the combination of the nanoMIPs with...

A portable and highly sensitive sensor was designed for the specific detection of 3,4‐methyl‐enedioxy‐methamphetamine (MDMA), in a range of field‐testing situations. The sensor can detect MDMA in street samples, even when other controlled substances drugs, or adulterants are present. In this work, we report for the first time a sensor using electro...

In recent years, molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) have proven to be an attractive alternative to antibodies in diagnostic and therapeutic applications. However, several key questions remain: how suitable are intracellular epitopes as targets for nanoMIP binding? And to what extent can protein function be modulated via targetin...

The introduction of solid-phase imprinting has had a significant impact in the molecular imprinting field, mainly due to its advantage of orienting the template immobilisation, affinity separation of nanoMIPs and faster production time. To date, more than 600 documents on Google Scholar involve solid-phase synthesis, mostly relying on silanes media...

Amphotericin B has been an essential drug in the fight against leishmaniasis and fungal pathogens for decades, and has more recently gained attention for the very limited microbial resistance displayed against it. However, its toxicity has restricted its use to only the most severe cases of disease, and attempts to reduce these ill effects via form...

Gene therapy is a promising approach for treating genetic disorders by delivering therapeutic genes to replace or correct malfunctioning genes. However, the introduced gene therapy vector can trigger an immune response, leading to reduced efficacy and potential harm to the patient. To improve the efficiency and safety of gene therapy, preventing th...

A novel enhanced fluorescent sensor system for zearalenone (ZON) determination in flour samples is presented. The ZON-selective molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) films were developed with a computational modelling method and synthesised with cyclododecyl-2,4-dihydroxybenzoate as a "dummy" template and ethylene glycol methacrylate phosphate as a f...

Polyfluoroalkyl compounds (PFASs) are synthetic compounds recently classified as permanent and emerging chemicals ever since their bioaccumulation in humans and the environment, due to the presence of carbon–fluorine functional groups. The design of novel screening tools with addressed high response time for the routine quantification of PFASs in w...

Redox-active molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles selective for glyphosate, MIP-Gly NPs, were devised, synthesized, and subsequently integrated onto platinum screen-printed electrodes (Pt-SPEs) to fabricate a chemosensor for selective determination of glyphosate (Gly) without the need for redox probe in the test solution. That was because, f...

Saccharides displayed on the cell surface of pathogens play critical roles in many activities such as adhesion, recognition and pathogenesis, as well as in prokaryotic development. In this work, we report the synthesis of molecularly imprinted nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) against pathogen surface monosaccharides using an innovative solid-phase approach...

Cadmium is a highly toxic heavy metal, even at low concentrations. Moreover, it bio-accumulates with a long biological half-life producing a wide variety of acute and chronic effects like cancer in humans. Therefore, there is significant interest in providing a portable and user-friendly sensor for heavy metal detection. A highly sensitive and sele...

Human performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), frequently used in sport competitions, are strictly prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Biological samples collected from athletes and regular patients are continuously tested regarding the identification and/or quantification of the banned substances. Current work is focused on the applicati...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-derived viral vectors are a promising platform for the delivery of curative, life-changing therapies to a huge number of patients with monogenic disorders. There are currently over 250 clinical trials ongoing worldwide. However, for these therapies to benefit as many patients as possible, techniques must be developed to...

Smart artificial nano-actuators were developed using electroactive acrylamide polymer nanoparticles by molecular imprinting. These nanoparticles are receptors that mimic the specificity of antibodies and replace enzymes in traditional biosensors allowing highly sensitive and selective monitoring. Electroactive polymer nanoparticles can be synthesiz...

Organophosphate nerve agents are associated with assassination, terrorism and chemical warfare, but there has been slow progress in developing a broad-spectrum response to poisoning. For some nerve agents the oxime component of the therapy may not be effective, limiting the effectiveness of emergency treatment that is desperately needed. An alterna...

Molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) are high affinity synthetic receptors which show promise as imaging and therapeutic agents. Comprehensive analysis of the in vivo behaviour of nanoMIPs must be performed before they can be considered for clinical applications. This work reports the solid-phase synthesis of nanoMIPs and an inves...

Cellular senescence has proved to be a strong contributor to ageing and age-related diseases, such as cancer and atherosclerosis. Therefore, the protein content of senescent cells is highly relevant to drug discovery, diagnostics and therapeutic applications. However, current technologies for the analysis of proteins are based on a combination of s...

Determining which cancer patients will be sensitive to a given therapy is essential for personalised medicine. Thus, it is important to develop new tools that will allow us to stratify patients according to their predicted response to treatment. The aim of work presented here was to use molecular imprinting for determining the sensitivity of lung c...

Current state-of-the-art techniques for the solid phase synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles typically rely on amino silanes for the immobilisation of template molecules prior to polymerisation. An investigation into commonly used amino silanes identified a number of problematic side reactions which negatively affect the p...

Modulation of enzyme activity allows for control over many biological pathways and while strategies for the pharmaceutical design of inhibitors are well established; methods for promoting activation, that is an increase in enzymatic activity, are not. Here we demonstrate an innovative epitope mapping technique using molecular imprinting to identify...

Molecularly imprinted polymers - MIPs - denote synthetic polymeric structures that selectively recognize the molecule of interest against which MIPs are templated. A number of works have demonstrated that MIPs can exceed the affinity and selectivity of natural antibodies, yet operating by the same principle of "lock and key". In contrast to antibod...

Cancer is a disease of cellular evolution where single base changes in the genetic code can have significant impact on the translation of proteins and their activity. Thus, in cancer research there is significant interest in methods that can determine mutations and identify the significant binding sites (epitopes) of antibodies to proteins in order...

Proteomic mapping of cell surfaces is an invaluable tool for drug development and clinical diagnostics. This work describes a new ‘snapshot imprinting’ method designed to obtain proteomic maps of cell surfaces, with the aim of identifying cell surface markers and epitopes for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The analysis of two cancer cell...

A fully abiotic Molecularly Imprinted Nanoparticle Assay (MINA) is developed for detection of the model protein pepsin. The format of the pepsin assay is based on binding of fluorescent pepsin-specific molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) to the magnetic pepsin nanoparticles (MPN) immobilised on magnetic microtiter plate inserts....

A polymer solid phase was tested as a replacement for the typical glass bead solid phase in the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs). The cross-linked polymer, containing amine functionality, was synthesised and applied in the preparation of nanoparticles imprinted for biotin. The surface concentration of amine grou...

Protein A has long been used in different research fields due to its ability to specifically recognize immunoglobulins (Ig). The protein derived from Staphylococcus aureus binds Ig through the Fc region of the antibody, showing its strongest binding in immunoglobulin G (IgG), making it the most used protein in its purification and detection. The re...

This chapter describes the latest advances in surface plasmon resonance sensors (SPR) based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). Following introduction that covers a brief information related to SPR and MIPs, an overview is provided about the performance and characteristics of MIP based SPR sensors for a wide range of analytes in the light of...

Glyphosate is a commonly used herbicide that can kill some weeds and grasses. Unfortunately, exposure to glyphosate is considered potentially harmful to humans. It may cause liver and kidney damage as well as can affect the endocrine system. ¹ Furthermore, the International Agency for Research on Cancer considers glyphosate as a probable carcinogen...

A sitagliptin voltammetric sensor was fabricated using artificial receptors called electroactive molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIP). The nanoMIP tagged with a redox probe (ferrocene) combines both the recognition and reporting...

For a range of analytical applications, the microchips and slides used in sample preparation should be coated with functional (polymeric) materials. These coatings need to have controlled thickness, appropriate chemical/physical properties such as strong adhesion, and strength to resist external forces. Herein, we address these challenges using sim...

Molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) are receiving broad interest as robust and highly selective synthetic receptors for a variety of molecules. Due to their stability, inexpensive synthesis and easy implementation, they are considered a promising alternative to antibodies in sensors, diagnostics and separation applications. The m...

Butyrylfentanyl is a new designer drug reported with growing use and related deaths. Routine toxicological analyses of this novel synthetic opioid drug have not been established yet. This work reports a fibre optic sensor that measures carboxyl-fentanyl which is the major metabolite of butyrylfentanyl presented in blood, providing a promising tool...

Herein, we assess the antioxidant potential of core-shell yttrium oxide nanoparticles functionalized with ethylene glycol methacrylate phosphate (EGMP). The antioxidant properties of these nanoparticles were investigated in heat stressed models of 21 rats (heat stressed group, group B). Different samples of blood, serum, and tissue homogenate were...

A highly sensitive disposable electrochemical sensor for paracetamol was devised using electroactive molecularly imprinted polymers nanoparticles (nanoMIPs). NanoMIPs were prepared by solid-phase synthesis. Polymer composition included itaconic acid as a specific functional monomer and ferrocene as redox label, which confers electroactivity to the...

This paper presents a simple approach for fabrication of a pipette tip solid-phase extraction (PT-SPE) device, which possesses a monolith structure with low back pressure and has high selectivity to 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). Pipette tips were packed with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) as a selective adsorbent and high-density p...

The present research describes the design of robust electrochemical sensors based on electro-responsive molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (e-MIPs). The e-MIPs, tagged with a redox probe, combine both recognition and reporting functions. This system replaces enzyme-mediator pairs used in traditional biosensors. The analyte recognition proc...

The combination of the generic mobile technology and inherent stability, versatility and cost-effectiveness of the synthetic receptors allows producing optical sensors for potentially any analyte of interest, and, therefore, to qualify as a platform technology for a fast routine analysis of a large number of contaminated samples. To support this st...

A robust and highly specific sensor based on electroactive molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (nanoMIP) was developed. The nanoMIP tagged with a redox probe, combines both recognition and reporting capabilities. The developed nanoMIP replaces enzyme-mediator pairs used in traditional biosensors thus, offering enhanced molecular recognition...

Fumonisin B1 (FB1) is a carcinogenic mycotoxin contaminating food and animal feed. Although the sensitivity of chromatography and immunoassays is high for FB1 determination, these techniques are still involved, challenging to be portabilised, laborious, and costly. Herein, a highly sensitive and selective electrochemical sensor using molecularly im...

The surface of ultrafine yttrium oxide nanoparticles (NPs) with mean size of 7–8 nm was modified with a functional polymer layer to improve their dispersion and impart fluorescent properties for imaging purposes. Surface functionalization was achieved by silanization of yttrium oxide NPs with 3-trimethoxysilylpropyl methacrylate followed by graftin...

A novel molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticle-based assay (MINA) performed in magnetic microplates was developed as an improved high-quality alternative to existing antibody-based immunoassays. MINA is a generic technology that can be adapted for biomarker detection in biological samples. Herein, we demonstrate the applicability of the MINA as...

Small molecule detection is of wide interest in clinical and industrial applications. However, its accessibility is still limited as miniaturisation and system integration is challenged in reliability, costs and complexity. Here we combined a 14.3 MHz quartz crystal resonator (QCR), actuated and analysed using a fixed frequency drive (FFD) method,...

The standard mechanism of molecular imprinting centers on the formation of a monomer-template complex in the pre-polymerization mixture which remains trapped in the polymeric network following polymerization in the presence of cross-linker. Release of the template leaves behind a binding site with functional groups “frozen” in a conformation comple...

Molecularly imprinted polymers are leading technology in the development of protein biomimetics. This chapter describes the protocol for the synthesis of protein imprinted nanoparticles. These materials exhibit exceptional affinity (into the nM/pM range) and selectivity for their target template. The nanoparticles can be developed for a wide range...

Materials that can mimic the molecular recognition-based functions found in biology are a significant goal for science and technology. Molecular imprinting is a technology that addresses this challenge by providing polymeric materials with antibody-like recognition characteristics. Recently, significant progress has been achieved in solving many of...

An array of 4,000 defined and addressable tripeptides on a polymer-coated glass slide is used to synthesize molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles. This work is undertaken to systematically probe the impact of the peptide sequence on the ability to generate affinity MIPs. The polymer affinity is assessed by measuring the fluorescence of...

Herein we describe the development of a homogeneous assay for the detection of 4-nitroaniline (4-NA) and 2,4-dinitroaniline (2,4-diNA). This assay relies on fluorescent molecularly imprinted nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) which, upon interaction with the target analytes, generate a reduction in fluorescence emission intensity (quenching). This is due to...

A library of 17 nanoparticles made of acrylate and methacrylate copolymers is prepared, characterized, and screened against six epitopes of adeno‐associated viruses (AAV)‐neutralizing antibodies to assess their affinity and specificity. Peptide epitopes are immobilized onto the surface of glass beads, packed in filtration microplates, and incubated...

Herein, we describe the use of molecularly imprinted nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) as sequestering (masking) agents, to suppress the signal coming from interfering molecules and facilitate the detection of the target analyte. In this work, ascorbic acid was used as a model interfering molecule in dopamine electrochemical detection. NanoMIPs selective fo...

Since their conception 50 years ago, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have seen extensive development both in terms of synthetic routes and applications. Cells are perhaps the most challenging target for molecular imprinting. Although early work was based almost entirely around microprinting methods, recent developments have shifted towards ep...

In 2004, octopamine was added to the list of drugs banned by the world anti-doping agency (WADA) and prohibited in any sport competition. This work aims to develop a new analytical method to detect octopamine in water and human urine samples. We proposed a pseudo-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (pseudo-ELISA) by replacing traditional monoclonal a...

In this work, magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (MMIPs) were prepared by the method of co-precipitation polymerization on the surface of vinyl-modified silica magnetic particles. Here, 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) was used as a template and vinylimidazole as a functional monomer. The structural features and morphology of MMIPs were characterized by S...

We present here a novel screening tool for optimisation of polymerisation mixtures used in imprinting of peptides and proteins. To facilitate rapid synthesis and screening of a combinatorial library of polymers the solid-phase synthesis method developed by Piletsky and co-workers was scaled down to 50 mg of template-immobilised solid phase, allowin...

Catalysis has enormous implications in a broad range of areas, ranging from industry to agriculture, aerospace to aviation, environment to ecology, military to civilian purposes and impacts on both inanimate objects and living systems. In particular, catalysis is recognized as the cornerstone for modern chemical industries. Despite its importance,...

By combining molecular modelling and electrochemistry we envision the creation of modified electrodes tailored for a more sensitive and selective detection of a single analyte. In this study we report on a graphite screen printed electrode modified with electropolymerized o‐phenylenediamine, selected by rational design, which promotes the detection...

The influence of lyophilisation, autoclaving and sonication on the stability and performance of trypsin-specific molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIP NPs) has been studied in order to improve their long-term physical stability. Glucose, glycine, sorbitol and trehalose were tested as cryoprotectant agents during the lyophilisation treatm...

The authors wish to make the following erratum to this paper [...]

Microcystins (MCs) are dangerous cyanotoxins for the public health, and microcystin-LR (MC-LR) is one of most toxic, dangerous, and frequently found in water bodies. Typically, the detection of MCs is carried out by means of competitive ELISAs which, however, need special precautions for handling and storage, due to the stability of the antibodies...

The solid-phase imprinting method was used to prepare particles imprinted against glycated haemoglobin by using the whole protein as a template. Obtained MIPs were then treated through a negative selection process to obtain high affinity MIPs able to recognize glycated haemoglobin but without any cross-reactivity towards non-glycated haemoglobin. B...