FURI | Fall 2020

Ligand-functionalized Microbeads for Preferential Binding of Methylated and Unmethylated DNA

In the previous study polymer microbeads (namely Amikabeads) were developed which contain a monomer (Amikacin Hydrate) and a cross linker (PolyEthylene Glycol Diglycidyl Ether or PEGDE). This research is looking at the modification of these microbeads with different lipid ligands to modulate the hydrophobicity and their preference of binding towards methylated vs unmethylated plasmid DNA with the goal of creating a ligand-functionalized chemically diverse library for methylation specific DNA binding.