Quartz crystal microbalance based nanosensor for lysozyme detection with lysozyme imprinted nanoparticles

The aim of this study is to prepare quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) nanosensor for the real-time detection of lysozyme. In the first part, the lysozyme imprinted (MIP) nanoparticles were prepared by mini-emulsion polymerization. The MIP nanoparticles were characterized by TEM, zeta-sizer and FTIR–ATR measurements. Particle size was found around 50 nm. The MIP nanoparticles were attached by dropping of nanoparticle solution to gold surface and then, dried at 37 °C for 6 h. QCM nanosensor was characterized with AFM and ellipsometer. The observations indicated that the nanoparticle film was almost monolayer. The detection limit was found as 1.2 ng/mL. The specificity of the QCM nanosensor was shown by using albumin as a competitor molecule. The results show that the QCM nanosensor has high selectivity and sensitivity with a wide range of lysozyme concentrations in both aqueous solutions (0.2–1500 μg/mL) and natural sources (egg white) (460–1500 ng/mL).