Polymethyl methacrylate resin (PMMA; CAS RN: 9011-14-7) is a clear polymer developed as a glass substitute. It is commonly referred to as acrylic glass or acrylic and marketed under trademarks such as: PLEXIGLAS™, PERSPEX™, ACRYLITE™, ACRYLPLAST™, and LUCITE™. PMMA has several advantages over silicon glass such as lower density, higher impact strength, higher shatter resistance, and a lower processing temperature. PMMA is commonly found in large windows, aquariums, vehicle rear lights, dentures, and paint coatings, to name a few.
The ubiquitous use of PMMA in industry makes it a prime material candidate for a variety of applications in which PMMA comprises some or all of a surface. However, the physical properties of PMMA may be undesirable for certain applications. Under such circumstances a coating may be applied to mask or alter the undesirable property.
One way to alter, mask or enhance certain properties of a PMMA polymer surface is to couple to the surface an agent that provides a desired effect or benefit (a “benefit agent”). However, many benefit agents do not durably adhere to PMMA. As such, there is a need to provide a reagent suitable for enhancing the delivery and/or durability of a benefit agent targeted to a surface comprising PMMA polymer. Preferably, the reagent has a least one portion having strong affinity for PMMA polymer.
Peptide-based reagents can be prepared to couple a benefit agent to a target surface. Peptide sequences that bind to surface comprising PMMA polymer are described by Cunningham et al. in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0265431. However, only phage display-identified PMMA-binding peptides are provided by Cunningham et al. It is known that other display techniques, such as mRNA-display, can provide greater sequence diversity that may result in the identification of linear peptides having stronger affinity for the target substrate (Gold, L., (2001) PNAS. 98(9):4825-4826). Additionally, some commercial applications may use peptide reagents comprising a plurality of different PMMA-binding peptides. As such, there is a need to identify additional PMMA-binding peptides having strong affinity for surfaces comprising PMMA polymer.
The problem to be solved is to provide additional PMMA-binding peptides as well as peptide-based reagents suitable for either (1) coupling a first surface comprising PMMA polymer to a benefit agent or (2) coupling a benefit agent comprising PMMA polymer to a second target surface to deliver a benefit to the second target surface.