Fabrication of a biomimetic adsorbent imprinted with a common specificity determinant for the removal of α- and β-amanitin from plasma

• The first report of removal of α, β-amanitin in plasma using a biomimetic adsorbent.
• The molecularly imprinted biomimetic adsorbent possess good hemocompatibility.
• Adsorption capability and selectivity is fully adequate for clinical hemoperfusion.

α-Amanitin and β–amanitin are the main toxins of mushroom poisoning. The application of traditional non-selective adsorbents is not satisfactory in clinical treatment of amanita mushroom poisoning due to lack of specificity adsorption capability of these adsorbents toward amanitin toxins. In the current work, we introduce a novel molecularly imprinted biomimetic adsorbent based on a ligand specificity determinant through surface imprinted strategy. Owing to the expensive price of the amanitin sources, we selected a typical common moiety of α, β–amanitin as specificity determinant to synthesize a template necessary for the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). Computer simulation was used to initially select acidic methacrylic acid (MAA) and basic 4-vinyl pyridine (4-VP) together as functional monomers. The experiments further demonstrated that the synergistic interaction of MAA and 4-VP played a primary role in the recognition of α, β-amanitin by MIPs. By means of batch and packed-bed column experiment and the hemocompatibility evaluation, the resultant biomimetic adsorbent has been proved to be capable of selectively removing α, β–amanitin and possess good hemocompatibility. This novel adsorbent has great potential to find application in human plasma purification.