Bio-imprinted hydro-gels (BIGS) for protein and virus detection

Detection of bio-markers at low concentration is becoming a more and more important topic in scientific research due to its importance in applications crucially related to people’s life like medical diagnosis, environment protection and national security. In the past decades, as the improvement of the modern analytical technologies progressed, plenty of methodologies have been developed to realize the fast and accurate detection of bio-markers in liquid media. However, some drawbacks still remain like the expensive cost, high requirement of operational environment, and need for skilled operators. Here, a new kind of aptamer-based bio-imprinted hydrogel sensor (BIG) with specific macroscopic volume response to certain biomarkers like proteins and virus at low concentration is reported. These super-aptamer hydrogels exhibit macroscopic volume change that can be detected by naked eyes when being treated with bio-marker solutions at extremely low concentration. This extraordinary macromolecular amplification is attributed to a complex interplay between biomarker-aptamer crosslinks and the structure of the hydrogel network surrounding it. Additionally, based on the work mentioned above, a new kind of bio-imprinted grating hydrogel film which can show visible change of the laser diffraction pattern when treated with biomarker solutions was also designed and fabricated based on the super-aptamer bioimprinted hydrogels. These films have also been proved to be able to detect both proteins and virus at low concentration in solutions