Design of molecular imprinted polymers with selectivity towards Amino acids

Abstract

An attempt to design imprinted polymers for the specific and selective newlinerecognition of Boc-L-tryptophan, Boc-L-phenylalanine and D-mandelic acid is newlinepresented in this thesis. Emphasis is given to the tailoring of imprinted newlinepolymers for these templates with maximum specificity and selectivity. Basic newlinefunctional monomer 4-vinylpyridine (4-VP), which is an electrophilic newlinemonomer was utilized for the preparation of imprinted polymers for these newlinetemplates with a carboxyl group in the molecule. Crosslinkers namely ethylene newlineglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and divinylbenzene (DVB) with widely newlinevarying degree of rigidity, flexibility and polarity were selected as crosslinking newlineagents for evaluating the nature and degree of crosslinking and for optimizing newlinethe conditions for maximum specificity and selectivity of imprinted polymers. newlineSpectroscopic methods such as Fourier-transform infra-red (FT-IR), UV-vis, newlineNMR and fluorescence technique have been used for the investigation of newlineinteraction between template and functional monomer. Scanning electron newlinemicroscopy gave the surface morphological differences between imprinted and newlinenon-imprinted polymers. The binding studies and the selectivity of the newlinepolymers were analyzed using UV-vis spectrophotometer. The polymer newlinepreparations were evaluated and compared with non-imprinted polymers for newlinetheir ability to bind the print molecule which is a measure of the specificity of newlinethe imprinted system. The binding of other substrates similar in structure to the newlineprint molecule was also analyzed to monitor the selectivity of the imprinted newlinesystem and the selectivity of the imprinted polymers was quantified as newlineseparation and selectivity factors. Significant cross reactivity was observed and newlinethe nature of the Scatchard plots was a direct indication of binding site newlineheterogeneity. The nature and degree of crosslinking and other parameters like newlineconcentration of the template solution, mass of the polymer, solvent, time and newlinethe ratio between functional monomer and template which influences the newlinebinding