Designing a Molecularly Imprinted Polymer-Based Nanomembrane for the Selective Removal of Staphylococcus aureus from Aqueous Media

Conventional applied techniques used for the detection of pathogenic microorganisms that are generally based on plating, serological and biochemical assays are unreliable and expensive while lacking sensitivity and specificity, compared to novel analytical methods. Investigation of reliable, rapid, analytical diagnosis methods seems necessary nowadays. In the present study, a highly accurate method was developed aiming to pre-concentrate and improve identification of Staphylococcus aureus as a major bacterial human pathogen using molecular imprinted polymer based membrane. Material and Methods: Cellulose acetate was used as the basic membrane with methacrylic acid as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linking monomer, antibody buffer media as the template molecule and 2, 2’-Azobis (2-methylpropionitrile) as the initiator agent. After selecting the best membrane composition based on the optimum ratio of antibody to imprinted monomer, electron microscopy was used to assess characterization and stabilization of the molecular imprinting of the templates on the membrane. Results and Conclusion: Based on the results, suspension of Staphylococcus aureus with a dilution of 3 × 105 included the highest bacterial mass absorption in no. 4 membrane filters, decreasing to 1.3 × 104 after exposing to molecular imprinted polymer modified membranes. The manufactured nanomembrane could significantly be developed in quality control of food industries, compared to traditional methods due to the shorter necessary times of bacterial mass diagnosis with higher accuracies.