Surface Imprinted Particles for the Removal of Coronaviruses from Aqueous Solution

Date
2023-01-30
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Abstract

Coronaviruses are responsible for the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and are the second most common cause of the common cold. Efforts to monitor coronaviruses in wastewater treatment systems have skyrocketed, however, current analytical methods to quantify coronavirus virions require a combination of selective assays (e.g., RT-qPCR) and infectious assays (e.g., TCID50). When combined with devices such as sensors, molecular imprinting is a promising strategy to obtain a direct measure of specific infectious viruses. However, effective imprinting templates are yet to be elucidated. We designed and fabricated glycoprotein imprinted particles (GIPs). GIPs were found to selectively remove two types of coronaviruses (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-NL63) efficiently from solution with greater than 1-log (90%) removal in under ten minutes. Selective adsorption was maximized at pH 6, the glycoprotein isoelectric point, which highlights the role of electrostatic interactions on separation efficiency and was confirmed using protein modeling. At pH 6, during competitive adsorption, the GIPs adsorbed more of the target virions (HCoV-OC43) than non-target virions (HCoV-NL63) which further promotes the use of glycoprotein templates for effective imprinted particles. Overall, these results highlight the benefits of GIPs and pave the way for imprinting techniques for the separation of other viruses.

Description
Degree
Master of Science
Type
Thesis
Keywords
coronavirus, molecular imprinting, wastewater, electrostatic
Citation

Senehi, Naomi. "Surface Imprinted Particles for the Removal of Coronaviruses from Aqueous Solution." (2023) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115063.

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