Synthesis of magnetic molecularly imprinted microsphere and development of an enhanced semi-homogeneous method for detection of pentachlorophenol in fish

In this study, pentachlorobenzene was used as dummy template to synthesize a type of magnetic molecularly imprinted microsphere for pentachlorophenol. At the same time, pentachloroaniline was coupled to streptavidinated horseradish peroxidase to synthesize an enzyme labeled tracer. The two reagents were used to develop a semi-homogeneous method on conventional microplate for detection of pentachlorophenol in fish samples. Due to the use of biotinylated horseradish peroxidase as signal amplification agent, the method sensitivity was improved for 375 folds in comparison with the use of conventional horseradish peroxidase labeled tracer with a limit of detection of 0.8 fg/g. After comparison, it was found that this method showed better performances than the previous immunoassays and molecularly imprinted polymer based methods for detection of pentachlorophenol. This study for the first time reported a magnetic molecularly imprinted microsphere based semi-homogeneous method for detection of small molecule, and this method could be used for routine determination of pentachlorophenol residue in fish samples.