Publication Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Nesterova, Irina

Degree Name

M.S. (Master of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Abstract

Quantitative information on biomarkers is a decisive factor in a wide range of situations concerning individual and public well-being. Under certain circumstances, the availability of accurate quantitative information can even become a matter of life or death. Therefore, the ability to make quantitative measurements in point-of-care (POC), do-it-yourself (DIY), and limited resource settings (LRS) is crucial for diagnostics, disease management, food safety, biomedical research, forensics, and other areas.In the work, we develop a POC/DIY/LRS-compatible platform for unambiguous (yes/no type) quantitative analysis of antibodies. The heart of the approach is negative cooperativity-based target – probe binding. The binding modality yields a well-defined structure exactly at the stoichiometric equivalence point. Detection of the target structure is a yes/no readout for a quantitative result. To incorporate the negative-cooperativity binding mechanism into antibody analysis, we design probes that bind target antibodies with negative-cooperativity. Each probe consists of two peptides for binding two domains on an antibody; the peptides are connected through a rigid double-stranded DNA linker. We develop protocols for the probe synthesis and characterization and evaluate antibody-probe binding.

Extent

108 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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