Recent advances in the application of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in food analysis

Molecular imprinting has received great attention in recent years for the analysis of a wide range of analytes in food matrices. The highly complex nature of the food matrix further adds to the need for intricate extraction and analysis. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) deal with the construction of a polymer in the presence of a template, which creates cavities during the polymerization process. This cavity, after removal of the template, can adsorb the analyte of interest, which might be the template itself, or a structural analogue of the template. Analytes ranging from contaminants, toxins, and adulterants to microbes and enzymes can be efficiently imprinted, facilitating extraction from the food matrices ranging from dairy, fruits, bakery, and beverages, followed by further analysis. MIPs have potential applications in food safety, quality control, extraction and sample clean-up in the food industry, thereby keeping a check on intentional adulteration, unintentional contamination and proximate composition of foods. Surrogate and “green” imprinting are also being explored in recent literature. The high selectivity, shelf stability, recovery, and repeatability of MIPs have enabled them to be employed in the real-time analysis or point-of-care testing of foods. This review aims to summarize the recent trends in the use of MIPs in food analysis, along with their potential limitations and future scope of work.