A new possible strategy for the treatment of COVID-19: Designed and based on Molecularly Imprinted Polymers
The present study reports the development of synthetic antibodies based on Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIPs) capable of selectively binding a portion of the spike of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Molecular imprinting in fact represents a very promising and interesting technology for the synthesis of MIPs characterized by specific recognition capabilities for a target molecule.
Given these characteristics, MIPs can be considered tailor-made synthetic antibodies obtained through a templating process. Following in silico analyses, synthetic antibodies were synthesized by inverse microemulsion polymerization, and their ability to prevent the interaction between ACE2 and the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 was studied. The results obtained from the tests carried out demonstrated the ability of these synthetic antibodies to significantly inhibit virus replication in Vero cell culture, suggesting their potential application in the treatment, prevention and diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
