Self-assembly Synthesis of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for the Ultrasensitive Electrochemical Determination of Testosterone

• Published in: Biosensors (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 3; p. 16
• Main Authors: Liu, Kai-Hsi, O’Hare, Danny, Thomas, James L., Guo, Han-Zhang, Yang, Chien-Hsin, Lee, Mei-Hwa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI 27.02.2020; MDPI AG
• Subjects: electrochemical sensing; electronically conductive polymer; molecular imprinting; testosterone; urine; electronically conductive polymer; electrochemical sensing; testosterone; urine; molecular imprinting
• ISSN: 2079-6374; 2079-6374
• DOI: 10.3390/bios10030016

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) can often bind target molecules with high selectivity and specificity. When used as MIPs, conductive polymers may have unique binding capabilities; they often contain aromatic rings and functional groups, which can undergo π-π and hydrogen bonding interactions with similarly structured target (or template) molecules. In this work, an electrochemical method was used to optimize the synthetic self-assembly of poly(aniline-co-metanilic acid) and testosterone, forming testosterone-imprinted electronically conductive polymers (TIECPs) on sensing electrodes. The linear sensing range for testosterone was from 0.1 to 100 pg/mL, and the limit of detection was as low as ~pM. Random urine samples were collected and diluted 1000-fold to measure testosterone concentration using the above TIECP sensors; results were compared with a commercial ARCHITECT ci 8200 system. The testosterone concentrations in the tested samples were in the range of 0.33 ± 0.09 to 9.13 ± 1.33 ng/mL. The mean accuracy of the TIECP-coated sensors was 90.3 ± 7.0%.