Receptor Mimotopes for Generic Biodection

Biodetection requires a recognition mechanism for the analyte of interest. Receptors not only provide this recognition mechanism, but also make possible generic detection, for example, neurotoxins can be recognized by a representative array of human neuroreceptors. A serious drawback with using receptors is that many receptors have not yet been identified, and therefore generic detection of analytes binding to these receptors cannot be achieved. Combinatorial methods offer a means of creating and screening a wide diversity of molecules with the goal of finding a particular molecule with the desired tailored properties. We propose to use a combinatorial method (called PROLAPS) to find peptides that mimic receptors (called mimotopes). PROLAPS offers the additional capability of building arrays of mimotopes that can be directly used as the sensing element, and of ultimately being completely automated, so that searching for new mimotopes will be a technique readily available to most researchers.