No / We describe a series of experiments designed to investigate the conformational transition that highly-branched polymers with ligands undergo when interacting with bacteria, a process that may provide a new sensing mechanism for bacterial detection. Fluorescent highly-branched poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)s (HB-PNIPAM) were prepared by sequential self-condensing radical copolymerizations, using anthrylmethyl methacrylate (AMMA) and fluorescein-O-acrylate (FA) as fluorescent comonomers and 4-vinylbenzyl pyrrole carbodithioate as a branch forming monomer. Differences in reactivity necessitated to first copolymerize AMMA then react with FA in a separate sequential monomer feed step. Modifications of the chain ends produced vancomycin-functional derivatives (HB-PNIPAM-Van). The AMMA and FA labels allow probing of the conformational behaviour of the polymers in solution via fluorescence non-radiative energy transfer experiments. It was shown that interaction of this polymer's end groups with Staphylococcus aureus induced a macromolecular collapse. The data thus provide conclusive evidence for a conformational transition that is driven by binding to a bacterium. / EPSRC
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/11361 |
| Date | 13 June 2014 |
| Creators | Swanson, L., Rimmer, Stephen, MacNeil, S., MacNeil, S., Douglas, C.W.I., Swindells, K., Sarker, P. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, No full-text in the repository |
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