Characterisation and application of molecularly imprinted polymers for group-selective recognition of antibiotics in food samples

Abstract

Group-selective molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for amphenicol antibiotics, including chloramphenicol (CAP), thiamphenicol (TAP), florfenicol (FF), and florfenicol amine (FFA), were developed for the first time using TAP as the template molecule. The characteristics of the obtained MIPs were systematically evaluated by chromatographic methods and frontal analysis, demonstrating that the MIPs had excellent chromatographic behaviors, good selectivity, and high-binding capability. A molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) procedure was developed based on the chromatography results. The MIPs exhibited better group selectivity for CAP, TAP, FF, and FFA than non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) under the optimized washing conditions of 10% acetonitrile in PBS buffer (25 mmol L⁻¹, pH = 5). Compared with conventional solid-phase extraction, significant recoveries ranging from 92.4% to 98.8% with lower relative standard deviation values in the range of 3.2–7.3% for both intraday- and interday-assays were obtained. The limits of detection (LODs) of MISPE for CAP, TAP, FF, and FFA in shrimp were found to be 0.016, 0.093, 0.102, and 0.029 μg kg⁻¹, respectively. The results acquired in this study contribute to the strategic development of MIPs and MISPE methods for the multi-residual recognition of antibiotics from complex matrices.