Solid‐Phase Screening and Synthesis of Molecularly Imprinted Nanoparticles for Selective Recognition and Detection of Brain Natriuretic Peptide

A new recognition method is explored for the rapid detection of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) based on the rational design and solid-phase synthesis of molecularly imprinted nanoparticles (nanoMIP) encapsulated with carbon dots. The nanosized magnetic template is first prepared by attaching the epitope of BNP on amino-functionalized magnetic carriers. High-dilution polymerization of monomers in the presence of magnetic template generates lightly crosslinked imprinted nanoparticles. To obtain the optimal MIP formulation, a new combinatorial screening approach is developed by a competitive fluorescence assay using the magnetic template. The resultant nanoMIP exhibits high affinity and selectivity toward BNP with an equilibrium dissociation constant (K_D ) of ≈10^-11 m. The proposed assay allows fast BNP detection within ≈7 min with a linear range of its concentration from 0.25 to 5000 pg mL^-1 and a limit of detection of 0.208 pg mL^-1 (S/N = 3). To demonstrate its practicability in clinical diagnosis, unknown real serum samples from 160 individuals are analyzed and the relative standard deviation is less than 4.43%. Compared with the routine electrochemiluminescence detection method that is widely used in hospital, the relative error is less than 4.98% and the correlation coefficient is 0.994.