Surface plasmone resonance sensor for biomimetic detection of progesterone with macroporous molecularly imprinted polymers prepared by visible light

Reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization mechanism was used for the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) film using 4-cyano-4-[(dodecylsulfanylthiocarbonyl)sulfanyl]pentanoic acid (CDTPA) as chain transfer reagent and visible light initiator. In addition, the effect of CDTPA concentration on the polymerization rate was monitored, establishing that too high CDTPA concentration would inhibit the polymerization rate. The MIPs film was characterized by contact angle measurement, frontier transfer infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) which showed the successful grafting of MIPs films onto surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor chip. The response of progesterone sensing ranged from 10^-16 to 10^-6mol/L with low detection limit of 1 10^-16mol/L in PBS buffer (pH 7.4) and the MIPs film exhibited good selectivity, reproducibility and stability. Moreover, the sensors had been successfully applied to detect progesterone in tap water, lake water and human urine turning out with wide detection range and low detection limit.