Designing and preparation of cytisine alkaloid surface-imprinted material and its molecular recognition characteristics

Based on molecular design, a cytisine surface-imprinted material was prepared using the new surface-imprinting technique of “pre-graft polymerizing and post-imprinting”. The graft-polymerization of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) on the surfaces of micron-sized silica gel particles was first performed with a surface-initiating system, preparing the grafted particles PGMA/SiO2. Subsequently, a polymer reaction, the ring-opening reaction of the epoxy groups of the grafted PGMA, was conducted with sodium 2,4-diaminobenzene sulfonate (SAS) as reagent, resulting in the functional grafted particles SAS-PGMA/SiO2. The adsorption of cytisine on SAS-PGMA/SiO2 particles reached saturation via strong electrostatic interaction between the sulfonate groups of SAS-PGMA/SiO2 particles and the protonated N atoms in cytisine molecule. Finally, cytisine surface-imprinting was successfully carried out with glutaraldehyde as crosslinker, obtaining cytisine surface-imprinted material MIP-SASP/SiO2. The binding and recognition characteristics of MIP-SASP/SiO2 towards cytisine were investigated in depth. The experimental results show that there is strong electrostatic interaction between particles and cytisine molecules, and on this basis, cytisine surface-imprinting can be smoothly performed. The surface-imprinted MIP-SASP/SiO2 has special recognition selectivity and excellent binding affinity for cytisine, and the selectivity coefficients of MIP-SASP/SiO2 particles for cytisine relative to matrine and oxymatrine, which were used as two contrast alkaloids, are 9.5 and 6.5, respectively.