Molecularly imprinted materials for biomedical sensing

Abstract

The development of medicine during the last decades was mainly responsible for the increase in population life expectancy. These advances were achieved owing to contributions by several science areas including biochemistry, chemistry, pharmacology and engineering (Blyakhman et al., 2017; Feldman, 2020). The development of new diagnostic tools is among the most relevant subjects in this context, since disease detection at premature stages enables avoiding evasive, complex and expansive treatments and principally spare lives, especially when detecting contagious diseases (Steele et al., 2016). Consequently, rapidly responding, specific, sensitive, robust and ideally non-invasive diagnostic tools are essential for tracking and preventing infections (Sabherwal et al., 2016; Sharafeldin et al., 2018). The development of advanced diagnostic tools is challenged by factors such as the type of target analyte, the variety and complexity of biological samples (i.e. tissues, biofluids, etc.), and the frequently pronouncedly low concentration levels of the analyte, which may directly or in combination affect the achievable selectivity and sensitivity (Ranadive et al., 2017). Despite recent advances in diagnostic tools, several issues remain unaddressed. Most diagnostic tests rely on the use of sophisticated biological receptors, such as antibodies, enzymes, DNA, serving as biochemical or chemical recognition elements. Due to their nature, these reagents may be subject to poor stability, limited availability and/or reproducibility during manufacturing/processing and contaminations affecting the analysis (Kilic et al., 2020). Consequently, synthetic receptor/molecular recognition materials such as MIPs are a promising alternative to overcome or minimize some of these limitations (Denmark et al., 2020; Qi et al., 2019). Using molecular imprinting strategies, selectivity for a specific target species is entailed into an inorganic material, which may then be added to biodiagnostic and biomedical devices instead of natural receptor motifs, as discussed in the remainder of this review.

Recent molecularly imprinted polymers applications in bioanalysis

“…In short, many kinds of MIP-based biosensor analysis developments have been reported for special targets such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) in plasma (Alanazi et al 2021 ), glycoprotein in human serum sample (You et al 2017 ), uric acid in serum and urine (Göçenoğlu Sarıkaya et al 2017 ), heart-fatty acid binding protein in human serum, human plasma, and bovine serum (Sanati et al 2021 ), β ‑amyloid in serum (Pereira et al 2020 ) and α synuclein in human brain organoids (Lee et al 2020 ) with high accuracy and recovery which may lead to clinical usage as fast and reproducible approaches. The use of MIPs in biological sensing has also been the subject of recent several review studies (Batista et al 2021 ; Kadhem et al 2021 ; Ramanavicius et al 2022 ) (Fig. 9 ).…”

The Use of Sensors in Blood-Brain Barrier-on-a-Chip Devices: Current Practice and Future Directions

“…Our recent work described the preparation and characterization of peptide-imprinted composite nanoparticles that not only allowed the detection of SNCA but also the extraction of SNCA from CRISPR/dCas9a-activated HEK293T cells [ 42 ]. MIP-based chemosensors [ 54 ] could be valuable in detecting the transfer, influx or efflux of various things—e.g., bioactive molecules, such as dopamine; CNS pathological factors, such as β-amyloid oligomers; serum proteins, such as albumin; and pathogens, such as viruses—across brain endothelial cell layers using BBBoCs. This type of sensor can be potentially also be used in pathological conditions to monitor the shedding of glycocalyx elements, such as sialic acid [ 54 ] from the luminal surface of brain endothelial cells, or to detect in the “blood” compartment markers of BBB leakage originating from the “brain” compartment, such as astrocyte markers glial fibrillary acidic protein and S100B, or neuron-specific enolase.…”

Upconversion Nanoparticles Encapsulated with Molecularly Imprinted Amphiphilic Copolymer as a Fluorescent Probe for Specific Biorecognition

“…Recently, molecular imprinting for biological recognition has attracted significant attention [15][16][17]. This approach uses the 'lock and key' mechanism; therefore, the molecule can identify a cavity with a complementary shape to achieve specific binding.…”

“…This approach uses the 'lock and key' mechanism; therefore, the molecule can identify a cavity with a complementary shape to achieve specific binding. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthesized by the in-situ polymerization of functional monomers and crosslinkers in the presence of target templates [16]. The monomer can interact with the template through covalent or non-covalent bonds.…”

“…The resulting cavities retain the corresponding steric and chemical memories of the templates. Therefore, the target species can selectively rebind to MIPs through specific interactions with these imprinted sites [16]. In recent years, some studies have combined MIP with fluorescent nanoparticles to measure fluorescence.…”