Epitope-imprinted polymers for biomacromolecules: Recent strategies, future challenges and selected applications

Molecular imprinted polymers are a promising alternative to natural receptors due to their higher stability and lower production costs, yet with comparable performance and high selectivity. The ‘epitope imprinting approach’, in which only a small sub-unit of the target is used as the template during imprinting provides a solution to overcome several limitations characteristic for biomacromolecular imprinting including availability, complexity, size, and conformational flexibility associated with biomacromolecules. The present review summarizes recent strategies for epitope imprinting, and highlights the applicability of this approach to a wide range of targets with different sizes and molecular properties including proteins, biomarkers and viruses.