[Preparation of epitope imprinted particles for transferrin recognition by reversible addition fragmentation chain...

A kind of novel epitope surface imprinted particles was prepared by the reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) strategy. The epitope of transferrin, N-terminal peptide of the protein with nine amino acid residues, was chosen as the template and immobi- lized with covalent interaction on the surface of silica particles through the truss arm glutaraldehyde. The living/controlled polymerization was initialed by 2,2'-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) at 70 °C in the solution of N,N-dimethylformamide, with the regulation by triothioester agent 2-(dodecylthiocarbonothioylthio)-2-methylpropanoic acid. Methacrylic acid and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate were chosen as the functional monomers and N, N-methylenebisacrylamide was chosen as the cross-linker in this polymerization. For this material, the binding capacity of the nine residue peptide could reach 2.36 mg/g with the imprinting factor (IF) of 1.89, while that for transferrin could reach 4.98 mg/g with IF of 1.61. The equilibrium could be achieved in 120 min for the transferrin recognition. In multi-protein competitive recognition, the imprinted factor of transferrin was the highest in the mixture of transferrin and other competitive proteins, such as cytochrome C and β-lactoglobulin. The results indicated that these epitope surface imprinted particles with RAFT strategy could recognize not only the nine residue peptide but also the transferrin with good selectivity, high binding capacity and fast mass transfer.