Abstract: The monolithic molecularly imprinted polymer - high performance liquid chromatography (mMIP-HPLC) method for the selective separation and determination of trace cytokinins in plant samples was developed in this work. Monolithic molecularly imprinted polymer (mMIP) column was prepared in stainless steel column by using kinetin as the template, methacrylic acid (MAA) as functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-liker, and toluene-dodecanol as porogenic solvents, respectively. Compared with non-imprinted polymer (NIP) monolith, the prepared mMIP exhibited selective separation ability, good reproducibility and reusability, and high extraction efficiency in the separation and enrichment of the four CTKs. Under the optimized experimental conditions, mean recoveries of 91.9%, 80.0%, 87.5% and 50.2% for kinetin (K), kinetin glucoside (KR), trans-zeatin (tZ) and meta-topolin (mT), respectively, with the corresponding RSDs less than 11.8%. The proposed mMIP-HPLC method was successfully applied in the separation and determination of the four cytokinins in different plant samples.
Author keywords: Monolithic molecularly imprinted column, High performance liquid chromatography, Cytokinins, sample preparation