Preparation of core–shell molecular imprinting polymer for lincomycin A and its application in chromatographic column

•Lincomycin A has been purified by molecularly imprinted technology.•The maximal adsorption capacity of lincomycin A was 62.66 mg/g.•The selectivity coefficient of MIPs for lincomycin A was 3.14.•Separation process can replace organic solvent extraction.•MIP column chromatography can separate lincomycin A in fermentation broth.

Lincomycin A is one main component of lincomycin, and the separation of lincomycin A from analogues B, C, D by organic solvent extraction has the problems of environmental pollution and multi-step process. Molecular imprinting polymer (MIP) could separate the target product from their structure analogues. In this paper, methyl methacrylate (MMA) was used as monomer in seed core and acrylamide (AM) was used as shell functional monomer. Core–shell MIP for lincomycin A was prepared using lincomycin A as template molecule, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linker and the ammonium persulfate (APS) as the initiator. The structure of MIP was characterized. Lincomycin A purification condition was explored and optimized. The result revealed that the maximal adsorption capacity was 62.66 mg/g, which reached equilibrium within 6 h. The selectivity coefficients of MIP and non-imprinted polymer (NIP) for lincomycin A related to lincomycin B were 3.14 and 1.08. In addition, MIP obtained a good purification result by column chromatography, and the recovery and purity of lincomycin A reached 97.57% and 93.3%, respectively.

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