Molecularly imprinted polymers based on magnetically fluorescent metal-organic frameworks for the selective detection of hepatitis A virus

A novel fluorescent molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) sensor based on a magnetic metal-organic framework (MOF) was prepared and applied in the detection of the weakly fluorescent hepatitis A virus (HAV). Luminescent MOFs can be used as both output signals and carriers; thus, a luminescent MOF (MIL-101-NH2) was used to replace conventional quantum dots and organic dyes for generating the fluorescence output signal. The constructed MIP sensor demonstrated excellent selectivity for the template recognition entities as well as a high detection sensitivity. Over the concentration range of 0.02-2.5 nM, the sensor had a detection limit of 3 pM, and a correlation coefficient of 0.997 was calculated by plotting the concentrations of the template virus against their respective fluorescence intensities. In addition, viruses were detected within 15 min by the prepared nanoparticles and remained highly selective in binary competition assays in the presence of HAV. As a result, the method developed in this work was simple, rapid, and could be used to detect HAV qualitatively and quantitatively. It has the potential to be used as a biosensor for the detection of weakly fluorescent or non-fluorescent viruses.