Towards molecularly imprinted polymers selective to peptides and proteins. The epitope approach.

In this paper, we describe the epitope approach to molecular imprinting. The applicability of molecular imprinting, a method that allows the preparation of biomimetic compounds (artificial receptors and antibodies), is extended by this approach. Our approach makes it possible to obtain imprinted polymers selective to peptides and proteins whereas, to date, molecular imprinting has been used primarily for the preparation of polymers that selectively bind to relatively low molecular weight substances. The epitope approach is based on using (as a template) a short peptide that represents only part of a larger peptide or protein (as an epitope represents an antigen), which in turn can be recognized by the synthesized polymer. It is demonstrated that although other parts of peptides can influence the process of molecular recognition, the polymers imprinted with a short peptide efficiently recognize both the template and larger peptides (for example, oxytocin) that possess the same C-terminal part of the structure.