Matrix effects on the selectivity of a cholesterol-imprinted polymer

• Published in: Polymer (Guilford) Vol. 48; no. 6; pp. 1483 - 1489
• Main Authors: Villar, Pablo, Whitcombe, Michael J., Vulfson, Evgeny N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 08.03.2007; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Cholesterol; Exact sciences and technology; Molecular imprinting; Organic polymers; Physicochemistry of polymers; Polymers with particular properties; Preparation, kinetics, thermodynamics, mechanism and catalysts; Selectivity; Molecular imprinting; Selectivity; Cholesterol; Benzene(divinyl) copolymer; Composition effect; Crosslink agent; Styrene derivative copolymer; Cholestenone derivatives; Crosslinked copolymer; Competitive fixation; Binding capacity; Template polymerization; Preparation; Molecular recognition; Methacrylate copolymer; Radical copolymerization; Comparative study
• ISSN: 0032-3861; 1873-2291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2007.01.043

The effect of cross-linkers ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDM) and divinylbenzene (DVB) on the recognition properties of cholesterol-imprinted polymers, prepared by the sacrificial spacer method, was investigated. As reported previously EGDM-based polymers selectively bound cholesterol in preference to cholest-5-ene-3-one. The addition of up to 30% DVB led to an increase in the binding capacity with very little trade-off in selectivity. However polymers prepared with pure DVB, or DVB/styrene showed complete reversal of selectivity, in some cases binding cholest-5-ene-3-one to the exclusion of cholesterol from a solution containing both ligands. An explanation based on template conformation has been proposed to account for these observations.