Biomacromolecule template-based molecularly imprinted polymers with an emphasis on their synthesis strategies: a review

Abstract

Molecular imprinting is an efficient tool for generating synthetic acceptors with specific recognition sites, which are mimed from template structures via polymerization. The final products of this strategy lead to high‐performance polymers with active recognition sites for a range of various applications in terms of extraction and separation, characterization and recognition, biomedicine, biosensors, and drug delivery. Molecular imprinting of biomacromolecules synthesizes a series of matrices that may be referred to as biomolecularly imprinted polymers (BMIPs). In this review article, an overview of different methods for fabricating BMIPs with an emphasis on novel polymerization schemes along with potential challenges is discussed. Additionally, selected applications of BMIPs will be briefly highlighted derived from the latest research papers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Polyacrylamide gels with selective recognition of the tetrameric molecular form of human growth hormone

“…There are no natural antibodies specific enough for recognizing these differently sized forms of the hormone. Molecular imprinting is a recent promising technique for the fabrication of biomimetic polymeric recognition sites with a selective affinity for a target molecule (such as a drug, protein or biomacromolecule), which is attracting rapidly increasing interest and many potential applications in the pharmaceutical and biotechnological field [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Imprinted materials may constitute an alternative to natural recognition elements.…”

“…The method creates materials resembling the binding sites of receptors and antibodies. The polymerization reaction usually occurs by free radical initiation [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate different initiation mechanisms for MIP synthesis, thermal, photo-induced, electrochemical or microwave-assisted methods were employed [7].…”

“…Polymerization at low temperatures provides for the most stable noncovalent interactions between functional monomer and template during the polymerization reaction. Several studies have shown that polymerization of MIP at lower temperatures forms polymers with greater selectivity versus polymers made at elevated temperatures [7]. Polymerization of MIP at lower temperatures are also important to prevent side reaction of the molecularly imprinted polymer and template molecule that can lead to covalent binding of the template to the MIP [7,8,13].…”

“…Polymerization of MIP at lower temperatures are also important to prevent side reaction of the molecularly imprinted polymer and template molecule that can lead to covalent binding of the template to the MIP [7,8,13]. In case of thermal initiation in aqueous solutions (especially in case of the synthesis of protein imprinted hydrogels) a redox initiation system usually was used, including potassium or ammonium persulfate as an initiator and N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylene-diamine (TEMED) as accelerator [4,7,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. TEMED accelerates the rate of formation of free radicals from persulfate and this initiation system it is very suitable in case of thermal initiated polymerization at lower temperatures.…”

“…If a thermal initiation is chosen, the template should not degrade under the temperatures of polymerization. Therefore the imprinting of macromolecules is a challenging research field [7]. Conventional molecular imprinting technology allows the synthesis in organic solvents of MIPs selective toward relatively low molecular weight compounds.…”