Approaches to molecular imprinting based selectivity in capillary electrochromatography

Abstract

The work done during the past decade in order to adapt molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to the capillary format and subsequently use these highly selective matrices for capillary electrochromatography (CEC) are reviewed in this article. MIPs are prepared utilizing a templated polymer synthesis where the template addresses the selectivity of the resulting polymer. These polymers possess binding characteristics that are comparable to the biological antibodies. Due to the polyclonality of the binding sites in the MIP, the separation result in severe peak broadening and tailing when performed in the isocratic mode. This was seen early in the development of MIPs as selective stationary phases in liquid chromatography (LC). As a mean of decreasing these problems, much effort was put into adapting the MIP to fit in CEC systems, that offers an efficiency that is superior to that in LC. Aiming to increase the efficiency of the MIP-CEC systems, different MIP formats have been developed that can be divided into three conceptually different categories, i.e., the monolithic, the microparticle and the coating. The strive for MIP formats that can be used in small bore capillaries has led to the development of MIP formats applicable to miniaturized systems approaching the chip format. Although prepared in order to perform MIP-CEC mediated separations, these formats can be used in a broad range of applications were the characteristics of the MIP, e.g. stability, selectivity and cost efficiency, could offer an interesting solution to cover the needs.

Affinity‐Based Drug Delivery

“…Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were mainly used in analytical fields, with applications geared toward separating, purifying, and quantifying different compounds, ranging from small drugs to therapeutic proteins. [23][24][25][26] These applications include ligand-binding immunoassays, [27] enantioseparation using liquid and electrochromatography, [28][29][30] solid-phase extraction, [31] catalysis and sensor design, as well as antibody and receptor mimicry ( Figure 5). [32] Molecular Imprinting Applied to Drug Delivery Molecular imprinting can provide an additional mechanism to control drug release, making imprinted polymers a rational step in drug delivery advancement.…”

Molecularly imprinted sol-gel silica for solid phase extraction of phenobarbital

“…Polymerization of the organized monomers and removal of the template would render macromolecules with cavities where the template or other species with similar structure could be highly selectively bound, due to the morphology of the site. Due to the specific nature of the interaction between the molecularly imprinted materials and selectable molecules, they have been employed in several analytical techniques, including liquid chromatography, 2 capillary electrophoresis 3 and capillary electrochromatography, 4,5 solid phase extraction, 6 and immunoassay determinations. 7 Molecularly imprinted polymers can be prepared following three different imprinting approaches.…”

Open Tubular Molecular Imprinted Polymer Fabricated in Silica Capillary for the Chiral Recognition of Neutral Enantiomers in Capillary Electrochromatography

“…The recognition properties of MIPs have been explored via high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC), the majority of application being with CEC recently as revealed in recent reviews. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] CEC makes use of both superior selectivity of HPLC and high separation efficiency of capillary electrophoresis (CE). Among the various formats used in CEC, open-tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC)-based MIP columns are promising tools for the research of recognition abilities of MIPs owing to the merits such as simple column preparation, no bubble formation, and stable EOF application, etc.…”