Application of mimetic analogs for the preparation of a bioinorganic sorbent modified with imprinted proteins

A method has been developed for obtaining a specific bioinorganic sorbent based on silicon dioxide (IV) particles modified with an imprinted protein (IP). Bovine serum albumin was used as the template protein molecule. The imprinting was carried out in the presence of a series of template molecules – coumarin, 4-hydroxycoumarin, quercetin, and 5,7-dimethoxycoumarin –which act as mimetic analogs of the mycotoxin zearalenone. To preliminarily assess the possibility of substituting zearalenone with mimetic analogs and to select the optimal template molecule concentrations during IP preparation, computational chemistry methods were used (molecular docking and molecular dynamics). The need for prior surface modification of the silicon dioxide (IV) particles to produce sorbents based on IPs was demonstrated. The potential application of the resulting bioinorganic sorbents for solid-phase extraction of template molecules from model solutions was validated for coumarin (Q = 2.0 mg/g), 4-hydroxycoumarin (Q = 1.2 mg/g), quercetin (Q = 0.8 mg/g), 5,7-dimethoxycoumarin (Q = 2.2 mg/g), and for zearalenone (ZEA) from wheat extract (Q = 4.79 mg/g, IF = 2.45). Sorption isotherms were constructed for ZEA on the IP-modified sorbents obtained using different mimetic analogs. Cytotoxicity of the IPs was studied, and biosafety was assessed using the AGREEMIP tool.