Current Trends in Molecular Imprinting: Strategies, Applications and Determination of Target Molecules in Spain

Abstract

Over the last decades, an increasing demand for new specific molecular recognition elements has emerged in order to improve analytical methods that have already been developed in order to reach the detection/quantification limits of target molecules. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have molecular recognition abilities provided by the presence of a template molecule during their synthesis, and they are excellent materials with high selectivity for sample preparation. These synthetic polymers are relatively easy to prepare, and they can also be an excellent choice in the substitution of antibodies or enzymes in different kinds of assays. They have been properly applied to the development of chromatographic or solid-phase extraction methods and have also been successfully applied as electrochemical, piezoelectrical, and optical sensors, as well as in the catalysis process. Nevertheless, new formats of polymerization can also provide new applications for these materials. This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of the new challenges in molecular imprinting as materials of the future in Spain.

Optimization of Magnetic and Paper-Based Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Selective Extraction of Charantin in Momordica charantia

“…Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthesized using molecular imprinting technology, in which functional monomers are allowed to self-assemble around a template molecule and are subsequently polymerized in the presence of a crosslinker. After completion of polymerization, the templates are removed, providing tailor-made binding sites or artificial receptors that have complementary shapes, sizes, and functionalities toward the target template [13]. Compared to traditional sorbents, MIPs offer good mechanical/chemical stability, high specificity, low-cost, easy preparation, and reversible adsorption/release of the target molecule, enabling selective sample extraction and preconcentration.…”

Preparation of Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for Methylene Blue Capture

“…Manipulation with an external magnetic field opens the possibility of unique applications for MMIPs, which may be used for solid-phase extraction of pollutants in water samples (pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, dyes, heavy metals, etc.) [7,8,12,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], photocatalytic and dark-condition degradation of pollutants [23], isolating active compounds contained in plants (alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenes, etc.) [12], enantioseparation [25], and the separation, purification, and detection of various biomolecules [22,[26][27][28].…”

“…[7,8,12,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], photocatalytic and dark-condition degradation of pollutants [23], isolating active compounds contained in plants (alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenes, etc.) [12], enantioseparation [25], and the separation, purification, and detection of various biomolecules [22,[26][27][28]. MMIPs show excellent selective binding to target compounds and can be quickly separated and easily removed from samples using an external magnet, thus avoiding time-consuming and tedious steps (centrifugation or filtration) [7,8,12,[18][19][20][21][25][26][27][28].…”

“…Furthermore, several emerging techniques (biosensor, chemiluminescence, etc.) based on MMIPs also offer new insights into pesticides [22], mycotoxins [22], antibiotics and drugs [18,20,22], protein [26], DNA and RNA [27], antibodies [22,26], and cancer biomarker [31] detection. Recently, MMIPs have begun to be used in various fields of biomedicine, such as disease diagnosis [31,32], pH and reducing stimuli-responsive drug and gene delivery [32][33][34][35], tumor imaging [33,34], and theranostics [33,34,36].…”

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Using Yeast as a Supporting Substrate

“…Numerous comprehensive reviews published in recent years have thoroughly discussed the application capabilities of different MIPs in the molecular imprinting field [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. However, none of these reviews has demonstrated the role of yeast in molecular imprinting.…”