Towards Peptide and Protein Recognition by Antibody Mimicking Synthetic Polymers – Background, State of the Art, and Future Outlook

Abstract

Antibody–peptide/protein interactions are instrumental for many processes in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and as tools for biomedical and biochemical research. The recent development of molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles displaying antibody-like recognition of peptides and proteins offers the possibility for substituting antibodies with these robust materials for applications where the structural integrity and function of antibodies is compromised by temperature, pH, solvent, etc. The background to the development of this class of antibody-mimicking material and the state-of-the-art in their synthesis and application is presented in this review.