Highly Selective Rational Design of Peptide-Based Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor for Direct Determination of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) Explosive

•The TNT recognition peptide candidates were rationally designed and identified through the complementarity determining region (CDR) of anti-TNT monoclonal antibody. Surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor functionalized with peptide candidates was utilized to screen the TNT binding peptide and characterize its sensitivity and selectivity to TNT explosive. In this study, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) binding peptide was synthesized and screened for TNT specific detection using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. The TNT binding peptide was rational design and synthesized through amino acid sequence from complementarity determining region (CDR) in the anti-TNT monoclonal antibody, which was produced from hybridoma cell using TNP-KLH conjugate as antigen. Three TNT binding peptide sequences were obtained from the heavy chain of CDR1 named TNTHCDR1, TNTHCDR2 from CDR2 and TNTHCDR3 from CDR3 of anti-TNT antibody. Screening process of three candidate peptides were carried out by using the SPR sensor with direct determination, which the peptide was directly immobilized on the sensor chip CM7 surface through amine coupling reaction. The results demonstrated that peptide TNTHCDR3 was determined as TNT binding peptide and no non-specific binding was observed. The selectivity of TNT binding peptide TNTHCDR3 was also testified by six kinds of TNT analogues. The results indicated the specific binding between TNT and peptide TNTHCDR3.