Polyaniline-Coated Flower-Like Titanium Dioxide Magnetic Fluorescent Imprinted Nanoparticles for the Determination of Transferrin in Human Serum

As a typical glycoprotein and potential disease biomarker, transferrin (TrF) plays an important role in binding and transporting iron ions and regulating homeostasis in vivo. However, conventional serum TrF detection technologies often need complex sample pretreatments and long analysis times. Hence, fluorescent magnetic molecular imprinted polymers (FMMIPs) were prepared for the determination of TrF in human serum, which combined the high sensitivity of fluorescence and the specificity of molecularly imprinted polymers. This material is a labor-saving, easy-to-use, and noninvasive biomarker, which provides the determination of serum TrF with high selectivity. Moreover, the preparation and fluorescent properties of FMMIPs were systematically investigated. Under the optimized conditions, the prepared FMMIPs had a good adsorption and fast response with a low relative standard deviation (less than 5%) for TrF with an imprinting factor of 3.21 and detection limit of 0.107 μg/mL. This material provides direct, sensitive, and rapid protein determination for TrF in serum.