Biomacromolecules 2012-12-10

Protein crystallization and biosensor applications of hydrogel-based molecularly imprinted polymers.

Subrayal M Reddy, Quan T Phan, Hazim El-Sharif, Lata Govada, Derek Stevenson, Naomi E Chayen

Index: Biomacromolecules 13(12) , 3959-65, (2012)

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Abstract

We have characterized the imprinting capability of a family of acrylamide polymer-based molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for bovine hemoglobin (BHb) and trypsin (Tryp) using spectrophotometric and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor techniques. Bulk gel characterization on acrylamide (AA), N-hydroxymethylacrylamide (NHMA), and N-isopropylacrylamide (NiPAM) gave varied selectivities when compared with nonimprinted polymers. We have also harnessed the ability of the MIPs to facilitate protein crystallization as a means of evaluating their selectivity for cognate and noncognate proteins. Crystallization trials indicated improved crystal formation in the order NiPAM