Cryptosporidium parvum is waterborne parasite that can cause potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal disease and is resistant to conventional water treatment processes, including chlorine disinfection. The current Environmental Protection Agency-approved method for oocyst detection and quantification is expensive, limiting the ability of water utilities to monitor complex watersheds thoroughly to understand the fate and transport of C. parvum oocysts. In this work, whole cell imprinting was used to create selective and sensitive surfaces for the capture of C. parvum oocysts in water. Cell-imprinted Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was manufactured using a modified stamping approach, and sensitivity and selectivity were analyzed using different water chemistries and different surrogate biological and non-biological particles. The overall binding affinity was determined to be less than that of highly specific antibodies, but on par with standard antibodies and immune-enabled technologies. These initial results demonstrate the potential for developing devices using cell-imprinting for use in waterborne pathogen analysis.

Cryptosporidium parvum是一种水生寄生虫，可导致潜在的危及生命的胃肠道疾病，并且对传统的水处理工艺（包括氯消毒）具有抵抗力。对卵囊检测和定量目前环保局批准的方法价格昂贵，限制供水设施进行彻底监视复杂的流域理解的命运和运输能力的隐孢子虫卵囊。在这项工作中，全细胞印记被用来创建选择性和敏感的表面，以捕获C. parvum水中的卵囊。细胞印迹聚二甲基硅氧烷 (PDMS) 使用改进的冲压方法制造，并使用不同的水化学和不同的替代生物和非生物颗粒分析灵敏度和选择性。确定的整体结合亲和力低于高度特异性抗体，但与标准抗体和免疫技术相当。这些初步结果证明了使用细胞印迹开发用于水性病原体分析的设备的潜力。