Molecular Imprinting Studies for Developing QCM-sensors for Bacillus Cereus

Abstract

Herein we report the design of a novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for B. cereus. In a first step, we screened different polymers for their respective affinities towards B. cereus with polymer coated quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), namely polystyrene (PS), polyacrylate (PA), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), polyacrylamide (PAA) and polyurethane (PU). Of these, PU and PAA revealed the highest inherent affinity to B. cereus. Light microscopy studies on polymer-coated glass plates demonstrated that PU is more promising than PAA, because the PU film contain more than three times as many bacteria compared to PAA. These experiments also showed that stamp imprinting is preferable to sedimentation imprinting. MIP was successfully transferred to QCM: Cavities generated are suitable to re-incorporate the bacteria. Both this and washing can be monitored in real-time. The sensor response time in distilled water is less than 10 min.