Abstract
Molecularly imprinted titania nanoparticles are su ccessfully synthesized by sol–gel method for the selective recognition of uric acid. Atomic force microscopy is used to study the morphology of uric acid imprinted titania nanoparticles with diameter in the range of 100–150 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images of thick titania layer indicate the formation of fine network of titania nanoparticles with uniform distribution. Molecular imprinting of uric acid as well as its subsequent washing is confirmed by Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy measurements. Uric acid rebinding studies reveal the recognition capability of imprinted particles in the range of 0.01–0.095 mmol, which is applicable in monitoring normal to elevated levels of uric acid in human blood. The optical shift (signal) of imprinted particles is six times higher in comparison with non-imprinted particles for the same concentration of uric acid. Imprinted titania particles have shown substantially reduced binding affinity toward interfering and structurally related substances, e.g. ascorbic acid and guanine. These results suggest the possible application of titania nanoparticles in uric acid recognition and quantification in blood serum.
Highlights
Imprinted titania nanoparticles are successfully synthesized by sol–gel method for the selective recognition of uric acid
Microscopic characterization of molecularly imprinted titania nanoparticles was performed via Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to study their morphology
The high optical shift is attributed to the successful imprinting of uric acid, i.e. the presence of uric acid-specific binding sites within imprinted titania nanoparticles’ network. These results suggest that uric acid imprinted titania nanoparticles can perform efficiently in complex mixtures, and their binding is preferential toward uric acid even if closely related substances or interfering species are present in these mixtures
Summary
Imprinted titania nanoparticles are successfully synthesized by sol–gel method for the selective recognition of uric acid. Atomic force microscopy is used to study the morphology of uric acid imprinted titania nanoparticles with diameter in the range of 100–150 nm. Imprinted titania particles have shown substantially reduced binding affinity toward interfering and structurally related substances, e.g. ascorbic acid and guanine. Molecular imprinting (Mosbach 1994; Chen et al 2011) is a modern technique to create artificial receptor sites in a variety of materials such as polymers (Latif et al 2011), nanoparticles (Lieberzeit et al 2007), and others. Non-covalent imprinting is more advantageous due to simple and straightforward synthetic procedure, commonly available starting materials and chemicals, and relatively easy extraction of weekly bounded template molecules (Sellergren 2000; Zhang et al 2006)
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