Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1
What Is “Imprinting”?
Upon hearing the word “imprinting,” the i rst thing that comes to mind
is “what is imprinting”? What is the dif erence between “imprinting” and
“printing”? h ere is a major dif erence between these two; printing means
making a copy of something, whereas imprinting means making a copy
of something onto the substrate and/or surface. In molecular imprinting
technology, people attempt to make an imprint of molecules (either micro-
or macro-) in the polymer matrix, hence popularly known as “molecularly
imprinted polymers (MIPs).” h e word or the innovation of imprinted
materials comes from the biological or natural phenomenon of “molecular
recognition.” h e term molecular recognition refers to the specii c interac-
tion between two or more molecules through noncovalent bonding such as
hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals
forces, π-π interactions, halogen bonding and/or electrostatic interaction.
h e host and guest involved in molecular recognition exhibit molecular
complementarity [1].
Molecular recognition plays an important role in biological systems and
is observed in between receptor-ligand, antigen-antibody, DNA-protein,
sugar-lectin, RNA-ribosome, etc. Molecular recognition can be subdivided
into static molecular recognition and dynamic molecular recognition
(Figure 12.1). Static molecular recognition is likened to the interaction
between a key and a keyhole; it is a 1:1 type complexation reaction between
Static:
Dynamic:
Figure 12.1
Schematic representation showing static and dynamic molecular recognition
(Source: Wikipedia page for molecular recognition).
