Molecularly imprinted polymers for the selective detection of multi-analyte neurotransmitters

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of electrochemical sensors for the detection of multiple neurotransmitters using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). Pyrrole (PPy) and o-phenylenediamine (o-PD) were used as functional monomers for the MIP sensor development, and the characteristics of those sensors were analyzed. Specifically, we demonstrate a selective detection of dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE), and epinephrine (EP) by applying differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) to each uniquely developed MIP-based sensor. Furthermore, the selectivity of the analyte was quantified based on the sensitivity matrix. Our results demonstrate that all MIP sensors possessed higher sensitivity than non-imprinted (NIP) sensors due to the unique molecular receptors. The detection limits of the developed MIP sensors were less than 1.3×10−5M. The uniqueness of the cross-reactivity in the DA-imprinted and EP-imprinted sensors demonstrate the possibility of implementing a multi-analyte sensing platform that can detect multiple neurotransmitters simultaneously from a single sample solution.