Synthesis and Characterisation of a Monolithic Imprinted Column Using a Methacrylic Acid Monomer with Porogen Propanol for Atenolol Analysis

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Pharmaceutical Impurities: Design and Synthesis Methods

The safety of a medicinal product is determined by its pharmacological and toxicological profile, which depends not only on the active substance's toxicological properties, but also on the impurities it contains. Because impurities are a problem that must be considered to ensure the safety of a drug product, many studies have been conducted regarding the separation or purification of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and the determination of impurities in APIs and drug products. Several studies have applied molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to separate impurities in active ingredients and as adsorbents in the sample preparation process. This review presents the design of MIPs and the methods used to synthesise MIPs to separate impurities in APIs and drug product samples, the application of MIPs to separate impurities, and a view of future studies involving MIPs to remove impurities from pharmaceutical products. Based on a comparison of the bulk and surface-imprinting polymerisation methods, the MIPs produced by the surface-imprinting polymerisation method have a higher adsorption capacity and faster adsorption kinetics than the MIPs produced by the bulk polymerisation method. However, the application of MIPs in the analysis of APIs and drug products are currently only related to organic compounds. Considering the advantages of MIPs to separate impurities, MIPs for other impurities still need to be developed, including multi-template MIPs for simultaneous separation of multiple impurities.

Molecular Dynamic Study of Mechanism Underlying Nature of Molecular Recognition and the Role of Crosslinker in the Synthesis of Salmeterol-Targeting Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for Analysis of Salmeterol Xinafoate in Biological Fluid

The rational preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in order to have selective extraction of salmeterol xinafoate (SLX) from serum was studied. SLX is an acting β-adrenergic receptor agonist used in the treatment of asthma and has an athletic performance-enhancing effect. Molecular dynamics were used for the simulation of the SLX-imprinted pre-polymerization system, to determine the stability of the system. The computational simulation showed that SLX as a template, 4-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) as a monomer, and trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TRIM) as a crosslinker in mol ratio of 1:6:20 had the strongest interaction in terms of the radial distribution functional. To validate the computational result, four polymers were synthesized using the precipitation polymerization method, and MIP with composition and ratio corresponding with the system with the strongest interaction as an MD simulation result showed the best performance, with a recovery of 96.59 ± 2.24% of SLX in spiked serum and 92.25 ± 1.12% when SLX was spiked with another analogue structure. Compared with the standard solid phase extraction sorbent C-18, which had a recovery of 79.11 ± 2.96%, the MIP showed better performance. The harmony between the simulation and experimental results illustrates that the molecular dynamic simulations had a significant role in the study and development of the MIPs for analysis of SLX in biological fluid.

An Update on the Use of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers in Beta-Blocker Drug Analysis as a Selective Separation Method in Biological and Environmental Analysis

Beta-blockers are antihypertensive drugs and can be abused by athletes in some sport competitions; it is therefore necessary to monitor beta-blocker levels in biological samples. In addition, beta-blocker levels in environmental samples need to be monitored to determine whether there are contaminants from the activities of the pharmaceutical industry. Several extraction methods have been developed to separate beta-blocker drugs in a sample, one of which is molecularly imprinted polymer solid-phase extraction (MIP-SPE). MIPs have some advantages, including good selectivity, high affinity, ease of synthesis, and low cost. This review provides an overview of the polymerization methods for synthesizing MIPs of beta-blocker groups. The methods that are still widely used to synthesize MIPs for beta-blockers are the bulk polymerization method and the precipitation polymerization method. MIPs for beta-blockers still need further development, especially since many types of beta-blockers have not been used as templates in the MIP synthesis process and modification of the MIP sorbent is required, to obtain high throughput analysis.