Imipramine-imprinted polymer: Designing by theoretical and empirical studies

Abstract

In this study the model drug imipramine was used to elaborate a theoretical protocol for the evaluation of the selectivity of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) system towards the drug and its main metabolite, viz. imipramine and desipramine for the bioanalytical purpose. The MIP1 prepared from 4-vinylbenzoic acid disclosed the highest binding capacity (8.3 ± 1.6 µg g−1) and the lowest ΔEB (–200.88 kcal mol−1) among all tested MIP systems together with the highest specificity with imprinting factor close to 16. The morphological and thermoanalytical measurements confirmed differences between MIP1 and NIP1 with the total specific surface areas equal to 147.2 m2 g−1 and 129.4 m2 g−1, respectively. The selectivity study revealed the highest binding capacities for imipramine and its close structural analogs, viz. maprotyline and protriptyline. The optimized experimental molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction protocol for MIP1 allowed for the recovery of imipramine and its main metabolite, desipramine from spiked human plasma samples with 108% and 69%, respectively, verifying positively the elaborated theoretical model.