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EQCM sensor for targeting psychoactive drug via rationally designed molecularly imprinted polymeric nanoparticles (nanoMIPs)

Archana Kushwaha, Juhi Srivastava, Meenakshi Singh

2021

2 citations

Abstract

Abstract Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) having the potential to mimic the selectivity and sensitivity of biological molecular recognition are blended here with piezoelectric transducer (EQCM) able to provide ‘real time’ monitoring of molecular level events with extreme sensitivity. In this work, molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles selective for a psychoactive drug, cathinone were synthesized, characterized and applied for specific and selective uptake in water. Nanoparticles were separated by centrifugation and characterized for their size and zeta potential. p-Phenylene diamine was chosen as functional monomer to imprint S-cathinone via in silico studies. Molecularly imprinted nanoparticles were eletrodeposited on gold coated quartz crystal electrode of electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM). Molecular imprinting experiments were optimized for selective and specific uptake of S-cathinone. Thus fabricated EQCM sensor was able to discriminate between stereoisomers and other close structural analogues also. Imprinting data were successfully fitted to Freundlich adsorption isotherm and curves for non-imprinted and imprinted data were compared. Under optimized conditions, response of nanoMIP-EQCM sensor is linearly proportional to S-cathinone concentration with detection limit as 0.12 ng mL−1 and quantification limit as 0.409 ng mL−1 and imprinting factor as 8. Hence, a highly specific and selective nanoMIP-EQCM sensor is fabricated in a facile manner.

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