Electro-spinning a calcium alginate based molecular imprinted nanofiber membrane for selectively adsorbing cytochrome c

Abstract

Cytochrome c (Cyt c) is a typical water-soluble heme metalloprotein with a wide variety of physiological properties. High-efficient separation of Cyt c from bio-matrix is very important to Cyt c practical use but always difficult. By coupling the electro-spinning technology and the molecular imprinting technology, a molecularly imprinted nanofiber membrane (MINM) was prepared by using calcium alginate as skeleton. The characterization indicated a well cross-linked calcium alginate nanofiber membrane was formed with good structure stability and high mechanical strength. The obtained MINM showed high capacity of 3312 mg/g on adsorbing Cyt c at the initial concentration of 2 mg/mL. The adsorption selectivity against bovine serum albumin, bovine hemoglobin and ovalbumin was as high as 36.49, 66.01 and 59.70, respectively. A good separation efficacy toward Cyt c was also observed in pig heart extracts. The obtained MINM had homogenous surface and identical adsorption sites, the adsorption of Cyt c on the membrane was monolayer, chemisorption and diffusion controlled, the molecules diffusion in the interior of the membrane was not the only rate-limiting step. The results indicated a good reusability and a promising practical application value of the obtained MINM on Cyt c separation, which further emphasized the value of the synthesis procedure employed in this study.