Oral & Poster Presentation Abstracts

Katheryn Adam, Chemistry Faculty Mentor: Marco Bonizzoni, Chemistry An off-the-shelf sensing system for physiologically relevant phosphates We have developed a chemical sensing system that can differentiate biologically relevant phosphates (nucleoside diphosphates, pyrophosphate) in neutral water solution using only commercially available components. Our approach uses a common fluorescent indicator and a poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) polycationic receptor to construct an indicator displacement assay (IDA). The system crucially relies on multivariate data collection and analysis. In fact, using different phosphates in the dye-displacement assay results in subtle differences in the optical signals; however, it is not possible to capture this information using classical univariate data presentation techniques. Instead, we rely on principal component analysis, a multivariate data analysis technique, to evaluate these differences and thus distinguish between the biologically relevant phosphates. We will also present supporting data reporting on the anion binding capabilities of the PAMAM system acquired using optical spectroscopy methods.