Cholesterol-Imprinted Receptor Using Chitosan Derivative as the Precursor

Abstract

Research has been focused on the development of molecularly imprinted polymers using a chitosan derivative as the precursor. An O-acyl chitosan was synthesized by the selective protection of amino groups of chitosan in MeSO3H and was cross-linked with glutaraldehyde in the presence/ absence of template molecule, cholesterol. The effect of the degree of the acyl substitution on the selection of precursor was investigated, regarding the solubility of chitosan derivative, interaction between the precursor and imprinted molecule, and degree of the cross-linking of precursor. The rebinding experiments indicated the significant recognition for cholesterol with imprinted polymer as compared with non-imprinted polymer. It was found that a good binding capacity of the imprinted polymer towards cholesterol could be achieved in a less-polar solvent. And the O-acyl chitosan-based molecularly imprinted polymer obtained displayed good recognition selectivity for cholesterol in comparison to similarly strctural analogue, cholesterol acetate.