(364b) Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for the Recognition of Proteins

Molecular imprinting is a useful technique to give tailor-made receptors for target molecules. The technique is based upon self-assembling of a target molecule (template) with polymerizable monomers bearing functional group(s) capable of interacting with the target molecule (functional monomers), followed by polymerization in order to maintain the alignment of the functional group(s) which are optimally set for binding the target molecule. After the removal of the template from the resulting polymer matrices, tailor-made binding sites for the template molecule could be constructed.

We are trying to prepare molecular recognition materials for proteins by using molecular imprinting. In this work, protein imprinted polymers were synthesized in aqueous solution using several water-soluble cross-linkers and acidic/basic functional monomers. The effectiveness of various imprinted processes was examined for obtaining maximum performance in protein recognition.We also propose protein imprinted polymer array, in which binding behaviors of proteins for different type of imprinted polymers are examined and statistical analyses are performed from the obtained data to characterize the tested proteins.