Molecular modelling was performed to study albumin-based imprinted proteins against three types of foodborne toxin templates.

Molecular imprinting is a rapidly developing and promising approach for the selective recognition for target molecules of different nature. In this review, we have collected works devoted to synthesis and application of polyaniline-based molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPANI) over the last 5 years. The manuscript provides brief descriptions of the main approaches to the synthesis of PANI MIPs and the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. We also discuss the effect of various factors on the process of MI-PANI synthesis, including polymerization methods, molecular weight of template molecules and the types of scaffolds. The analytical characteristics of the resulting sensors are also provided. Thus, it can be concluded that polyaniline is a very promising material for MIPs synthesis.

The manuscript describes an optical sensing microplate for the high-throughput screening of imidazolinone herbicides in soil extracts. As far as we know, imprinted proteins (IPs) specific to imidazolinone herbicides have not been synthesized and used as a recognition element for their solid-phase extraction before. Imprinted bovine serum albumin (BSA) and glucose oxidase (GOx) were synthesized in the presence of imazamox as a template and then these IPs were immobilized at the bottom of microplate wells. The sorption capacity (Q) of aminated silica nanoparticles modified by IPs (IP–BIS) was 6.38 mg g⁻¹ while the imprinting factor ($IF$) equaled 2.6. The concentration of imazamox was determined by a “turn-off” solid-phase assay using alloyed CdZnSeS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) as a component of fluorescent substrate. Alloyed CdZnSeS/ZnS QDs were stabilized in an aqueous phase by positively charged cysteamine that, as far we know, had not been used as this type of ligand before. Our method allows for determining the concentration of imazamox in the range of 0.5–9.2 μg mL⁻¹, with a limit of quantification limit of quantitation (LOQ) equal to 0.45 μg mL⁻¹ The sensing microplate enables parallel detection of up to 96 samples containing herbicides using standard fluorescence microplate readers or smartphones. The paper describes how such sensing microplates can be used for the analysis of artificially contaminated soil samples. The proposed approach combines pre-concentration of analyte at the IPs with its subsequent determination on a single analytical platform, thus allowing for both highly sensitive determination in laboratory conditions and mass screening in the field.

Imprinted proteins (IPs) are promising materials for producing artificial alternatives to natural recognition systems (antibodies, aptamers, etc.) due to their high sorption properties and specificity. However, contemporary understanding of the imprinting process at the atomic level is rather limited, which hinders the rational design of more efficient IPs. In this paper, we use computational modeling to provide a description of fundamental principles of protein imprinting at the atomic level. We have modeled several potential associates between the protein matrix and template molecules that form during the imprinting process up to the addition of the cross-linking agent. We used bovine serum albumin (BSA) as the protein matrix and 4-hydroxycoumarin (4–HC) as a molecular template. In combination with computational modeling, extensive experimental analyses including isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and NMR spectroscopic methods (¹H NMR and diffusion-ordered NMR spectroscopy (DOSY)) were used to evaluate the potential efficiency of imprinted BSA. This study represents a step toward the future rational in silico design of IPs.