Trace analysis of lipophilic substances in complex environmental,
food, or biological matrices has proven to be a challenge, on account
of their high susceptibility to adsorption by particulate matter and
liquid–solid interfaces. For this purpose, liquid–liquid
extraction (LLE) is often employed as the separation method, which
uses water-immiscible organic solvents. As an alternative, magnetic
solid-phase extraction (MSPE) allows for adsorption, separation, and
recovery of analytes from large volumes of aqueous samples with minimum
usage of organic solvents. However, the poor selectivity hampers its
performance in various scenarios, especially in sewage samples where
complicated and unpredictable interference exists, resulting in block
of the active adsorption sites of the sorbent. To this end, we propose
receptor-affinity MSPE employing magnetic liposomes decorated with
cell membranes expressing G-protein-coupled receptor as the sorbents.
Application of the novel sorbent CM@Lip@Fe infused with CB1 cannabinoid
receptors was demonstrated for the targeted extraction and enrichment
of tetrahydrocannabinol from sewage matrix. Thanks to the high affinity
and molecular selectivity of the ligand-receptor interactions, a limit
of quantitation of 5.17 ng/L was achieved coupled with HPLC-MS/MS
in unfiltered raw sewage, featuring minimum usage of organic solvents,
fivefold enhanced sensitivity, low sorbent dosage (75 mg/L of sewage),
and high efficiency as major advantages over conventional LLE. This
work establishes a framework for efficient separation of specific
molecules from complex media, thus promising to extend and refine
standard LLE as the clean-up procedure for trace analysis.