RESUMO
Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) are the polymers created by molecular imprinting techniques that leave cavities for the specific interactions with a template molecule and have been applied in molecular selectivity tasks. In this study, the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation technique was used to demonstrate that aniline oligomer could be developed as a potential MIP for detection and separation of the spectinomycin drug molecule for gonorrhea treatment. MD simulations were performed for the systems of a spectinomycin within aniline oligomers of different sizes. The mean square displacement (MSD) and the diffusivity calculated from MD simulations showed that the diffusion coefficient was significantly dropped when the length of aniline oligomer was greater than two. The diffusion coefficient of spectinomycin became the lowest within aniline trimers, corresponded to the highest atomic distribution of MIP around the template. Then, the specific cavity in MIP systems with and without spectinomycin was calculated to assess the stability of the cavity created by the template. The volume of a cavity created within the trimer system was closest to the spectinomycin volume and therefore became the optimal oligomer size for further development of MIP.