Dielectric constants are not enough: Principal component analysis of the influence of solvent properties on molecularly imprinted polymer–ligand rebinding

The influence of the physical properties of incubation medium on the rebinding of template to bupivacaine molecularly imprinted and non-imprinted methacrylic acid–ethylene dimethacrylate co-polymers has been studied. Principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to identify the factors with the greatest influence on binding. While the dielectric constant (D) made a significant contribution to describing the observed binding, the influence of polarity as reflected in the Snyder polarity index (SPI) was also demonstrated to make a significant contribution. The use of solvents containing hydroxyl functionality in particular was observed to exert unique effects on recognition. The variation in solvent influence on binding at constant D motivates more complex analyses when studying MIP–ligand recognition.