Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Synthetic Antibodies

Molecularly imprinted polymers have come to be recognised as antibody mimics since Mosbach and co-workers demonstrated the use of imprinted polymers for the sorbent assay of drugs [1], Not only in applications, but also in preparation principle, imprinted polymers can be regarded as antibody mimics the synthesis proceeds in a tailor-made fashion and the resultant polymers show specific binding for a given guest molecule. Also, imprinted polymers have many characteristic features as synthetic antibody mimics that contrast with natural antibodies. 

Therefore the development of synthetic phases that can offer similar recognition properties seems desirable. One promising way to introduce selectivity in chemical analysis is the use of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) [14-16]. These can in favourable cases recognise small molecules with affinities and selectivites exceeding that of antibody-antigen and have, due to their robustness, capacity and reproducibility, potential as reusable adsorbents in assays or sample pretreatment. 

Recently, a strong trend in molecular recognition is the development of molecular imprinting polymers (MIP). MIPS have been used as synthetic antibodies in immunoassays and biosensors, but also as catalysts and separation media (employed both in analysis and extraction). One of the first applications of MIPs in separations was the enantiomeric separation of amino acids derivatives. 

One of the most attractive applications would be molecularly imprinted catalysts. In principle, such catalysts could be prepared if substrate, product or transition-state analogs could be used as template molecules, since to natural catalytic antibodies are produced in a similar way. Since molecularly imprinted polymers are considered to be analogous to antibodies in that binding sites are tailor-made, catalytic antibody-like activity in imprinted polymers could also be conceived, enabling an artifi-cial catalytic antibody with the advantageous features of synthetic molecules to be produced. 

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers Molecular imprinting technique was recently used to prepare highly selective tailor-made synthetic affinity media used mainly in chromatographic resolution of racemates or artificial antibodies [158-161]. A complex between the template molecule and the functional monomer is first formed in solution by covalent or noncovalent interactions (Figure 6.12). 

Finally, and in which refers to the recognition element, it can be taken into account that there are some approaches that use synthetic antibodies that mimic the natural ones. This is the case of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), where the imprinting effect is achieved... 

Although the emphasis in this review has been on the manipulation of synthetic polymers it would not be appropriate to omit entirely the complementary work on biopolymers. Two important strategies are evolving here, both of which involve molecular imprinting. The first concerns specifically chemically modified proteins, and the second the generation of catalytic antibodies with functions similar to enzymes, but potentially with much greater scope in terms of the reactions catalysed. 

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