Polydopamine: surface coating, molecular imprinting, and electrochemistry—successful applications and future perspectives in (bio)analysis

Dopamine oxidation and self-polymerization have recently attracted great interest arising from the versatile chemistry of this endogenous catecholamine. Particularly interesting are the applications of polydopamine for surface coating, molecular imprinting, and electrochemistry, which are reviewed here, covering the broad fields of medicine, materials science, and (bio)analytical chemistry. Nonetheless, the peculiar physicochemical properties of dopamine and polydopamine, due to the redox potential of the catechol moiety, are not fully exploited. We have confidence in increasing the applications of dopamine through a large variety of research approaches, including the use of naturally occurring or synthetic dopamine analogues and copolymers. Accordingly, our efforts in this direction are focused on proposing a role for polydopamine in quantitative applications, evaluating analytical performance, cost, reproducibility, and versatility of the methods developed, and also revisiting standard (bio)analytical platforms.