Biomimetic Sensors to Detect Bioanalytes in Real-Life Samples Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymers: A Review

Abstract

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) come with the promise to be highly versatile, useful artificial receptors for sensing a wide variety of analytes. Despite a very large body of literature on imprinting, the number of papers addressing real-life biological samples and analytes is somewhat limited. Furthermore, the topic of MIP-based sensor design is still, rather, in the research stage and lacks wide-spread commercialization. This review summarizes recent advances of MIP-based sensors targeting biological species. It covers systems that are potentially interesting in medical applications/diagnostics, in detecting illicit substances, environmental analysis, and in the quality control of food. The main emphasis is placed on work that demonstrates application in real-life matrices, including those that are diluted in a reasonable manner. Hence, it does not restrict itself to the transducer type, but focusses on both materials and analytical tasks.

Ammonia breath analysis

“…To avoid overcomplicating the production process of biomimetic sensor materials, processes such as molecular imprinting and self-assembly are often used. 42,43…”

Recent Trends in the Development of Carbon-Based Electrodes Modified with Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Antibiotic Electroanalysis

“…MIPs are mechanically and chemically stable even at extreme pH and temperature values and, therefore, suitable for MIP-based sensors preparation even if they are single-use or multi-use [73,74]. Owing to these advantages, MIPs found applications in catalysis [75], immunoassays [30], separation [76] and sensing [77][78][79] procedures, in the pharmaceutical and medical fields [68,70,74,80], as well as in food [81,82] and environmental monitoring and control [68,70,80,83,84].…”

Century Impact of Macromolecules for Advances of Sensing Sciences

“… Composition Analytes Sensing behavior References 1 ZnO and Polyvinyl alcohol Glucose Tuneable potential with efficient parameters i.e. detection limit of 0.2 mM [ 76 ] 2 Indenoquinoxalinone based conjugated polymer Laccase The linear range of 0.005–0.175 mM, the limit of detection of 9.86 µM, and sensitivity of 153.6 µA/mMcm² [ 77 ] 3 1, 3, 6, 8-Tetraphenylpyrene and α , α ′-dibromo- p -xylene Trace ampicillin Limit of detection of 1.33 fg mL − 1 (3.30 f. M) with pi-pi inter-cation [ 78 ] 4 Bi-functional PEDOT NADH and lactate The linear range of 20–960 µM, the detection limit of 2.04, and sensitivity of 0.224 µA µM − 1 cm − 2 at the PEDOT-COOH50% interface [ 79 ] 5 Alginate based hydrogel E-coli Rapid and cost-effective with better parameters like the limit of detection 10 2 colonies forming unit per mL [ 80 ] 6 Chemically treated polyvinylchloride Ethanol Sensing range 0.01–42 mM, the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.0001 µM and stability for of 180 days at 4 °C [ 81 ] 7 PVC Membrane Antileukemia Drug Cytarabine Linearity range 1.0 × 10 − 6 –1.0 × 10 − 3 M at pH 2.8–4 with a detection limit of 5.5 × 10 − 7 M [ 82 ] 8 Polystyrene …”