The development of synthetic selective membranes that separate materials of similar sizes, charges, and/or polarities remains a difficult challenge, and looking towards biology provides inspiration for new designs. In this work, a series of cholera toxin binding peptides (CTBPs) are identified, spanning a range of binding inhibitions, and integrated into chemically cross‐linked cholera toxin binding gels (CTBGs) via thiol‐Michael polycondensation reactions. All gels demonstrate rheological profiles consistent with elastic solids. The CTBGs are probed via small‐angle neutron scattering and exhibit a correlation length, ξ, smaller than most proteins (1.3–2.5 nm). Thus, an effective entropic mesh is formed to block non‐targeted proteins. However, the CTBGs have a dynamic mesh size, Ξ, that is larger than cholera toxin (CT) to allow the transport of target proteins. The CTBGs with the highest binding inhibitions both show high selectivity and permeation of CT, rejecting all other tested proteins. In total, two new highly selective CTBGs are synthesized and validated for use in cholera toxin remediation. Together, this platform demonstrates the wide applicability of selectively‐diffusive materials for difficult separations.

中文翻译：

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用于隔离毒素的工程选择性生物毒素结合水凝胶

开发分离具有相似尺寸、电荷和/或极性的材料的合成选择性膜仍然是一个艰巨的挑战，而生物学的研究为新设计提供了灵感。在这项工作中，鉴定了一系列霍乱毒素结合肽（CTBP），涵盖一系列结合抑制作用，并通过硫醇-迈克尔缩聚反应整合到化学交联的霍乱毒素结合凝胶（CTBG）中。所有凝胶都表现出与弹性固体一致的流变特性。 CTBG 通过小角中子散射进行探测并表现出相关长度，Ψ，小于大多数蛋白质 (1.3–2.5 nm)。因此，形成有效的熵网格来阻止非目标蛋白质。然而，CTBG 具有动态网格尺寸 Ξ，大于霍乱毒素 (CT)，以允许目标蛋白的运输。具有最高结合抑制的 CTBG 均表现出高选择性和 CT 渗透性，排斥所有其他测试的蛋白质。总共合成并验证了两种新的高选择性 CTBG，可用于霍乱毒素修复。总之，该平台展示了选择性扩散材料在困难分离中的广泛适用性。