The Imprinted Mechanism of Metallothionein-imprinted Polymers

Metallothioneins (MTs) are a super-family of low molecular weight cysteine-rich proteins. Although many research works have been reported on their structure, application, etc. , there is not any article reported on imprinted mechanism of MT-imprinted polymers, yet. These polymers are prepared by using acrylic acid (AA) as a funct ional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a cross-l inker, 2,2 -azobis(2-methylpropionitrile) (AIBN) as an initiator, and chloroform as a solvent . The imprinted mechanism is first studied by infrared spectroscopy analysis, Scatchard analysis, and TEM techn ique. Infrared spectrograms indicate the functional groups of SH in thiolate sulphurs have lone pair electrons which can form 11:-11: bond with C=O in AA. Scatchard plot shows at least three kinds of binding sites exist in MTimprinted polymer and TEM technique indicates that most terminal thiolate sulphurs in MT are polymerized mostly as binding sites during the polymerization. The study will offer exper imental found ation for further research and application of MT-imprinted polym ers.