Synthesis and structure analysis of synthetic peptide polymer conjugates that can be used as immunogen in veterinary medicine against Brucella abortus disease

The studies about polymer-biomolecule complexes and conjugates, provide opportunity for both understanding their behaviour in living organism and advancing bioconjugation technology. Immunogenic polymer-peptide conjugates, which can be alternatives to existing vaccines, are very important for developing effective synthetic vaccines that contain no virus and also for diagnostic and biotechnological products. It's a common thought that these conjugates will make contribution to developing new type of synthetic polymeric vaccine systems. In this thesis, Brucella, one of the bacterial diseases, was studied. In the thesis, antigenic peptide sequence of Brucella disease that is found in literature [Trp-Leu-Ala-Glu-Ile-Lys-Gln-Arg-Ser-Leu-Met-Val-His-Gly (WLAEIKQRSLMVHG)] was chemically synthesized by microwave assisted solid phase technique, purified and characterized. Covalent conjugates of this peptide were obtained in the presence of cross-linker EDC (1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochlorid) with different conjugation rates with PAA (polyacrylic acid) polymer and VP-AA (Poly (N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone-co-acrylic acid)) copolymer which is synthesized and characterized by our group. Conjugation with PAA polymer was carried out with two different ways which are constant peptide-increasing polymer and constant polymer-increasing peptide. For conjugation with VP-AA copolymer, two different methods were performed. These water soluble bioconjugates were studied using by HPLC, GPC, FT-IR and Zetasizer instruments, the best conjugation rates were determined. Cytotoxicity analyses were made for the conjugates synthesized with VP-AA. Also with this synthesized peptide, peptide loaded PLGA nanoparticles were formed and their structures were investigated with AFM, SEM, Zetasizer and fluorescence microscopy. Cytotoxic features were assessed.