Thermo-sensitive imprinted polymer embedded carbon dots using epitope approach.

A new type of thermo-sensitive receptor carbon dots/SiO2/molecularly imprinted polymer (CDs/SiO2/MIP) was prepared by surface imprinting procedure and the epitope approach. The synthetic CDs/SiO2/MIP was able to selectively capture target protein with fluorescence quenching via the special interaction between them and the recognition cavities. The receptor exhibited the linear fluorescence quenching to cytochrome c (cyt c) in the range of 0.1-40 μM, and the detection limit was 89 nM. The precision for five replicate detection of cyt c at 20 μM was 3.11%. Moreover, the receptor owned the temperature-sensitive element that allowed for swelling and shrinking in response to temperature changes to realize recognition of the target cytochrome c. The proposed strategy revealed the feasibility of fabrication of a thermo-sensitive imprinted polymer based on CDs and surface imprinting procedure and the epitope approach.