Binding characteristics of homogeneous molecularly imprinted polymers for acyclovir using an (acceptor–donor–donor)—(donor–acceptor–acceptor) hydrogen-bond strategy, and analytical applications for serum samples

This paper demonstrates a novel approach to assembling homogeneous molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on mimicking multiple hydrogen bonds between nucleotide bases by preparing acyclovir (ACV) as a template and using coatings grafted on silica supports. 1H NMR studies confirmed the AAD-DDA (A for acceptor, D for donor) hydrogen-bond array between template and functional monomer, while the resultant monodisperse molecularly imprinted microspheres (MIMs) were evaluated using a binding experiment, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and solid phase extraction. The Langmuir isothermal model and the Langmuir–Freundlich isothermal model suggest that ACV-MIMs have more homogeneous binding sites than MIPs prepared through normal imprinting. In contrast to previous MIP–HPLC columns, there were no apparent tailings for the ACV peaks, and ACV-MIMs had excellent specific binding properties with a Ka peak of 3.44 × 105 M−1. A complete baseline separation is obtained for ACV and structurally similar compounds. This work also successfully used MIMs as a specific sorbent for capturing ACV from serum samples. The detection limit and mean recovery of ACV was 1.8 ng/mL−1 and 95.6%, respectively, for molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction coupled with HPLC. To our knowledge, this was the first example of MIPs using AAD-DDA hydrogen bonds.