Abstract: A method of purifying cyclododecyl 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate as a potential replacement template molecule for preparation of molecularly-imprinted polymers for isolation of zearalenone in urine was developed. Full physicochemical characteristics of cyclododecyl 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate for the first time included crystallographic analysis and molecular modelling, which made possible the determination of the similarity between the cyclododecyl 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate and zearalenone molecules. The obtained molecularly-imprinted polymers show very high in vitro selectivity towards zearalenone due to specific interactions (e.g., hydrogen bonding, molecular recognition interaction). The achieved extraction recovery exceeds 94% at the tested concentration levels (20-500 ng mL-1) with a relative standard deviation below 2%. Immunosorbents were found to have lower recoveries (below 92.5%) and RSD value between 2 and 4% for higher concentrations of the studied substance (400 ng mL-1)
Template and target information: cyclododecyl 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate, dummy template, zearalenone
Author keywords: zearalenone, Molecularly-imprinted polymers, crystallographic analysis, molecular modeling, molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE)