Protein recognition by polydopamine-based molecularly imprinted hollow spheres

A facile method to prepare hollow molecularly imprinted polymers (HMIPs) for specific recognition of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) from biological samples was proposed in this paper. The HMIPs was prepared using silica nanoparticles as the sacrificial matrix and dopamine as functional monomer. The thickness of polydopamine shells can be easily modulated by tuning the mass ratio of silica matrix and dopamine. The polymerization conditions and recognition behaviors of the HMIPs were investigated systematically. The results suggested that the hollow structure endowed the HMIPs with fast adsorption kinetics of 25 min, high binding capacity of 172.1 mg/g, and reusability of no less than four adsorption-regeneration cycles without apparent deterioration. Meanwhile, excellent binding specificity towards HRP was presented in the selectivity studies. Moreover, enriching of HRP from human serum sample by the obtained HMIPs was conducted. The HMIPs displayed satisfactory binding specificity to HRP, in spite of the complex composition of the human serum.