How Conventional Approaches to the Use of Polymer-Containing Composites in Molecular Diagnostics Are Changing

Abstract

Known approaches to the isolation of biopolymers, in particular nucleic acids (NAs), from biological samples are based on the binding of molecules to a sorbent (“positive selection”) with their subsequent elution using a suitable eluent. The review article discusses the physicochemical processes underlying the development of methods for isolating of NAs from biological samples. It has been shown that methods including the selective solid-phase extraction (i.e., reversible sorption) provide the possibility of miniaturization and automation of the corresponding processes. The review discusses the advantages of an alternative approach to NAs isolation based on the use of special sorbents that bind proteins and other components of biological samples, while these sorbents exhibit sorption inertness with respect to NAs (“negative selection”). Approaches providing the creation of such composite polymer-containing sorbents, which are designed for the sample preparation during molecular diagnostics, as well as the methods of their effective use are considered. It has been demonstrated that due to an interdisciplinary approach using a complex of synthetic and analytical methods, it is possible to combine as a single object of study the composite materials that are very different in structure and properties. Such nanostructured composites (based on porous silica, synthetic membranes, glass multicapillaries) contain fluoropolymers and polyanilines. The results of the use of such composites for selective isolation of NAs and/or proteins from biological samples are discussed. Alternative applications of such composites in molecular diagnostics, in particular, in mass spectrometry, are considered. Directions for expanding of the field of application of polymer-containing composites due to simultaneous use of the sorption properties of the obtained composites surface and the properties of sorbate molecules are outlined. It has been shown that both polymeric and low molecular weight modifiers of the same chemical nature are suitable for the technological preparation of such composites.