The use of excessive antibiotics in medical treatment and animal breeding has led to their prevalence in the environment and foods. Thereby, rapid, cheap, and sustainable techniques are required to detect and control the potential risk related to antibiotics. Actually, immunoassays have wide applications for this purpose, and improved assay formats with enzymatic, fluorescent, nanodispersed, and other tracers have enhanced the efficiency of the technique. However, there are several shortcomings of immunoassay due to the protein nature of antibodies. Thereby, molecular imprinting technology has evolved as growing artificial analytical receptor for molecular recognition with binding properties similar to natural antibodies. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are defined as "plastibodies" or substitutes for antibodies in immunoassays. This review gives a general overview of the application of molecular imprinting to analytical systems, its state of art, and perspective. The application of MIP-based assays in the detection of antibiotics in food and environmental samples is explored herein.
Keywords: Antibiotics; artificial antibodies; detection; food safety control; immunoassay; molecularly imprinted polymers.