Facile preparation of superparamagnetic surface-imprinted microspheres using amino acid as template for specific capture of thymopentin

Abstract

Novel superparamagnetic surface-imprinted microspheres (SIMs) with molecularly imprinted shell layer were controllably synthesized via fragment imprinting and surface imprinting technique. The SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys microspheres were prepared by using L-arginine (L-Arg) and L-lysine (L-Lys) as pseudo-template molecule for specific rebinding to thymopentin (TP5), respectively. The characterization results revealed that both SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys were successfully prepared and possessed a high magnetic sensitivity. The rebinding-isotherm analyses of SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys showed that the Langmuir isotherm model was well fitted to the equilibrium data, indicating that only one kind of rebinding site was present in SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys. Besides, the kinetic properties of SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys both were well described by the pseudo-second-order kinetics model, which indicated that a chemical process may be the rate-limiting step in the rebinding process. Moreover, the magnetic imprinted microspheres were found to have a higher specificity for TP5 than that for immunostimulating peptide human (IPH). What is more, SIMs-Arg and SIMs-Lys were successfully applied for TP5 determination in urine. According to the maximum adsorption capacity, the imprinting factor and real sample experiment, it was noted that SIMs-Arg had better specific adsorption property for TP5 than SIMs-Lys.