Carbon Nanotube Facilitated Interface Formation for Enhanced Protein Sensing in Electrosynthesized Molecular Imprinting

Molecular imprinting is a sensing technique that uses synthetic ligands to form high-affinity binding sites complementary to the specific analyte of interest. It has been well developed for recognition of small compounds, however, the efficacy of molecular imprinting remains challenging in protein sensing. The attributing factors are the fragility of protein molecules and their complex surface chemistry that complicate the selection of functional monomers in the imprint synthesis. In this work, we theoretically and experimentally investigated the mechanism underlying the ultra-sensitive performance of a carbon-nanotube originated electrosynthesized protein imprinting sensor. By computational screening of 14 phenolic compounds and 11 conventional functional monomers in the eletrosynthetic imprinting, it was found the possible formation of interface, and its involvement in the high affinity of the imprinting was suggested. By artificially enriching the functional compounds with high binding energy to optimize interface composition in the electrosynthetic protein imprinting, the protein sensing performance is correspondingly increased in the electrochemical nanosensor. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first proposal of interface formation for the protein imprinting design, and the hypothesis is proved in concept.