Highly selective determination of acid phosphatase in biological samples using a biomimetic recognition-based SERS sensor

In this paper, we introduce a synthetic biomimetic receptors-based surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensor for highly specific recognition and detection of acid phosphatase in complex biological samples. It depends on the establishment of molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) which capture the target glycoprotein via biomimetic recognition, and SERS probes which bind to glycoproteins by boronate affinity. The MIPs layer was synthesized through self-polymerization of dopamine on the surface of glycoprotein-immobilized polymeric skeletons, which was prepared by choosing 4-vinylphenylboronic acid (VPBA) as functional monomers, pentaerythritol triacrylate (PETA) as crosslinker, ethyleneglycol (EG) and cyclohexanol as porogens. The accessible and stable recognition sites allowed the rebinding of the template and offered good reproducibility. The proposed biomimetic recognition-based SERS sensor showed superb performances for acid phosphatase detection with high sensitivity (LOD of 0.1 ng mL−1) and excellent selectivity.