Development of Molecularly Imprinted Membranes for Selective Determination of Urinary Ultra-Trace 5-Fluorouracil as Antineoplastic Drug Used in Chemotherapy

Abstract

The incidence of neoplasm has significantly increased around the world over the last decades, resulting in use of anti-neoplastic drugs and the potential for occupational exposure to these drugs. One of the most commonly used chemotherapeutic drugs for treatment of malignancies is 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). In this study, in order to develop an appropriate adsorbent for selective extraction of ultra-trace 5-fluorouracil from urine samples, molecularly imprinted membranes (MIMs) of 5-FU were prepared by encapsulating molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIP-NPs) into the electrospun polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibers. The MIP-NPs encapsulated into electrospun PET nano-fibers were prepared by precipitation polymerization technique. These MIMs were used as selective sorbents for solid-phase extraction (SPE) of ultra-trace 5-FU from different samples prior to the analysis by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Central Composite Design (CCD) was used for optimization of effective parameters in sorption and desorption steps of the molecularly imprinted membrane solid phase extraction (MIMSPE). The optimum operating conditions for the proposed method were pH: 6.2, amount of sorbent: 10.3 mg and absorption time: 20.5 h, the volume of eluent: 1 mL, the composition of elution solvent: the ratio of 90.3:9.7 methanol and acetic acid, and desorption time: 1.27 h. Under these optimized conditions, the limit of detection for 5-FU by MIMSPE was 0.07 μ L-1. The recoveries of 5-FU from urine sample ranged from 92.95±3.85 to 94.85±2.85%. The proposed MIMSPE-HPLC method can potentially be applied for selective detection of 5-FU in real samples with no special sample pretreatment steps.