Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for the Detection of Aflatoxin

Blanch Khouri Sader, Emmanuelle Schué , Brent S. Sumerlin

University of Florida

Aflatoxin, a carcinogenic compound, is present in food sources and poses a threat to agricultural, livestock, and human health. This work utilizes molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to selectively bind to aflatoxin for efficient detection of infected crops. MIPs are polymer matrices that have an artificial recognition site that is complementary to the size, shape, and spatial arrangement of a template molecule introduced during polymerization. Upon template removal, MIPs have cavities with high affinity and selectivity towards the template molecule. Non-Imprinted Polymers (NIPs) are the control versions of MIPs, as they are synthesized in the same manner, but in the absence of the template molecule during polymerization, thus making them less selective towards the template molecule allowing them to aid in analyzing the
performance and efficacy of the synthesized MIPs. We have developed a MIPs system prepared by precipitation polymerization using reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization, capable of detecting an aflatoxin mimic, 5,7-dimethoxycoumarin (DMC). In this system, the template molecule, DMC, participates in hydrogen bonding with the functional monomer, methacrylic acid (MAA), to form cavities that selectively bind DMC. Template rebinding experiments were conducted to measure the selectivity of MIPs and NIPs. The MIPs showed a significant increase in the uptake of the template in comparison to NIPs. These results represent that we have developed a MIPs system capable of detecting an aflatoxin mimic, which represents a first step toward preparation of field-relevant detection device.