Preparation of flower-like molecularly imprinted polymers based on metal coordination for selective extraction of hemoglobin

Abstract

In this study, we present a facile strategy to prepare flower-like molecularly imprinted polymer (CuS/MIPs) for highly specific separation of hemoglobin (Hb) under neutral conditions. Cu2+ were first grafted on the surface of polydopamine-modified flower-like hollow CuS. Then, template proteins were immobilized on the Cu2+-modified CuS through coordination interaction. Subsequently, an imprinted layer was formed using acrylamide (AM) and 4-styrene sulfonic acid sodium salt (SSS) as functional monomers. After the template removal process, the cavities that can specific bind Hb were obtained. The effects of metal ions, functional monomers, pH on the adsorption capacity of the CuS/MIPs were investigated. Benefiting from the combination of multiple binding and imprinting effects, the CuS/MIPs not only exhibited large adsorption capacity (182.74 mg/g) and fast adsorption kinetics (60 min) toward template protein, but also showed satisfactory reusability and selectivity. Meanwhile, the CuS/MIPs could selectively capture Hb from bovine serum sample, demonstrating that the CuS/MIPs will be an auspicious candidate for protein separation.