title: Bioimprinting strategies: from soft lithography to biomimetic sensors and beyond.
abstract: Imprinting is a straightforward, yet a reliable technique to develop dynamic artificial recognition materials-so called as synthetic antibodies. Surface imprinting strategies such as soft lithography allow biological stereotyping of polymers and sol-gel phases to prepare extremely selective receptor layers, which can be combined with suitable transducer systems to develop high performance biomimetic sensors. This article presents an overview of the remarkable technical advancements in the field of surface bioimprinting with particular emphasis on surface imprinted bioanalyte detection systems and their applications in rapid bioanalysis and biotechnology. Herein, we discuss a variety of surface imprinting strategies including soft lithography, template immobilization, grafting, emulsion polymerization, and others along with their biomimetic sensor applications, merits and demerits. The pioneering research works on surface patterned biosensors are described with selected examples of detecting biological agents ranging from small biomolecules and proteins to living cells and microorganisms.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemistry, University of Punjab, Lahore 54590, Pakistan; Institute of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Waehringerstrasse 38, Vienna 1090, Austria.
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mujahid
authors.forename: Naseer
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Iqbal
authors.forename: Adeel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Afzal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D001709:Biotechnology; D002417:Cattle; D006801:Humans; D054802:Molecular Imprinting
keywords: Bioimprinting; Biomimetic sensors; Emulsion polymerization; Epitope imprinting; Grafting; Nano imprint lithography; Soft lithography; Surface patterning; Template immobilization