Extensive Imprinting Adaptability of Polyacrylamide-based Amphoteric Cryogels Against Protein Molecules
Abstract Lysozyme, pepsin, ovalbumin, hemoglobin, and γ-globulin were chosen as templates to investigate the imprinting capability of amphoteric polyacrylamide cryogels. Prepolymerizing solutions contained acrylic acid and allyl amine, as well as acrylamide and N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide as functional monomers. As a result there were both acidic and basic functional groups in the polymers, facilitating effective interactions with likewise amphoteric proteins. The proteins differed greatly and cover wide scopes of molecular weights and isoelectric points. Regardless of the values of the molecular weights and isoelectric points, all the templates gave higher retentions on the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) tubes than on the non-imprinted polymer (NIP) tube. The MIP of lysozyme indicated the highest imprinting factor of 7.0, and that of γ -globulin showed the lowest, 2.0. The values of other proteins were intervenient. Conclusively, the amphoteric polyacrylamide cryogels were suitable imprinting materials for various proteins, and could potentially be useful for protein recognition, purification and depletion.