Fabrication of glucose-immobilizing fluorescent polymer particles with high magnetic responsiveness

Abstract

Glycan-immobilizing particles are useful for a wide variety of biomedical applications, such as the detection, separation, and purification of proteins, viruses, and bacteria, which can be specifically bound by the glycan moieties. One strategy for the quick and accurate detection of these components is to collect the particles magnetically after binding the components to the particle surface. We fabricated core–shell particles composed of a magnetic core and a thin polymer shell. The shell was incorporated with a fluorescent dye with glucose molecules immobilized on its surface. As the magnetic core, we selected Fe₃O₄ particles. Taking into consideration its low environmental impact, we adopted soap-free emulsion polymerization to form the polymer shell. Thus, methyl methacrylate was polymerized in the presence of Fe₃O₄ particles, octyl-β-d-glucopyranoside, and rhodamine B to generate a glucose-capped fluorescent PMMA thin shell on the Fe₃O₄ particles. The resulting particles exhibited a saturation magnetization of ∼53 emu/g. The novelty of this research is that glucose-immobilized polymer particles with excellent magnetic properties that can be collected in 5 s using a magnet can be synthesized with an environmentally friendly method.

Keywords:

• Fe₃O₄
• glucose
• core–shell particle
• soap-free emulsion polymerization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant Number 21K04764, AMED under Grant Numbers JP21lm0203010 and JP22ym0126803, and an Ibaraki University Grant for Specially Promoted Research.