Chemical tongues: biomimetic recognition using arrays of synthetic polymers

Abstract

Humans can taste and identify numerous comestibles by combining a small variety of taste receptor cells that exhibit broad-spectrum sensitivity with information processing based on pattern recognition. Recently, we have developed a biosensing strategy called the “chemical tongue”, which mimics the taste system by employing polymeric materials containing various chemical structures labeled with environment-responsive fluorophores in conjunction with statistical techniques such as multivariate analysis and machine learning. In this review, the author outlines the design of polymer-based chemical tongues using polyamino acids, DNAs, and polyion complexes and their applications with various complex biological samples, including cell suspensions, cell secretions, and therapeutic antibodies. The chemical-tongue strategy is capable of recognizing biological samples in a unique manner that does not, in contrast to conventional approaches, rely on specific interactions, thereby potentially opening avenues for unexplored uses of polymers in a wide range of research areas.