Clozapine imprinted polymers: Synthesis, characterization and application for drug assay in human serum

A variety of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) against clozapine (CLZ) were synthesized and their recognition properties were compared with blank non-imprinted polymers. Methacrylic acid (MAA) was used as a functional monomer and Chloroform or tetrahydrofuran (THF) were applied as polymerization solvents. Chloroform as the solvent and MAA/CLZ ratio of 5 was selected as optimized polymerization condition. In Scatchard analysis of MIP–CLZ interactions, two classes of binding sites were found in MIP—high affinity (KD = 14.5 μM) and low affinity (KD = 322.5 μM) binding sites. The polymer was evaluated as a selective sorbent in molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) of CLZ from human serum. The MISPE procedure was developed and optimized with a recovery of 88–102%. The intra- and inter-day precision values were less than 1.36% and 2.5%, respectively. The selectivity of MISPE for CLZ was studied in comparison with some drugs. These drugs could be present with CLZ, simultaneously in serum of patients. The data indicated that the imprinted polymer had a good selectivity and affinity for CLZ and could be used for selective extraction and analysis of CLZ in human serum.