Design of Size-Tunable Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for Selective Adsorption of Pharmaceuticals and Biomolecules

Abstract

The tunable and nano-sized materials have recently been received much attention due to the unique physical and chemical properties which are different from bulk materials. Moleculary imprinted polymer (MIP) nanoparticles with special functions provide opportunities for transformative approaches for a wide of variety applications such as imaging, adsorbent, therapeutic reagents, drug delivery vehicles, sensors, toxin neutralization and enzyme inhibition. In this review, the principle, fabrication approaches, parameters to affect affinity and selectivity of MIP were summarized. The application of MIPs for removal of pollutants as well as the separation of macrobiomolecules was also introduced. Through the tuning processes, MIPs can satisfy the needs of simple, fast, cost-effective and robust. In addition, MIPs are easily to be integrated with the diagnosis and separation system, which have instinct advantages in separation, drug delivery, therapeutic and diagnosis fields. Contents shown in this review clearly show that MIPs are highly potential materials for facile design for not only separating the molecules from small molecules to biomolecules by precipitation polymerization but can also be used for imaging, cell tissue engineering and antidotes.