Synthesis and characterization of molecularly imprinted polymernanoparticles for coenzyme Q10 dispersive micro solid phaseextraction

BONELLI P.; LUCANGIOLI S.; CONTIN M.; TRIPODI V.; LUCANGIOLI S.; CUKIERMAN ANA LEA; CONTIN M.; CUKIERMAN ANA LEA; BONELLI P.; TRIPODI V.

JOURNAL OF CHROMATOGRAPHY - A

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 1456 p. 1 - 9

0021-9673

tMolecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIPNPs) with the ability to recognize coenzyme Q10(CoQ10) were synthesised in order to be employed as sorbent in a dispersive micro-solid phase extraction(DMSPE) for the determination of CoQ10 in a liver extract. CoQ10 is a redox-active, lipophilic substanceintegrated in the mitochondrial respiratory chain which acts as an electron carrier, shuttling electronsfrom complex I (NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase) and II (succinate-ubiquinone oxidoreductase) tocomplex III (ubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase), for the production of cellular energy. The MIPNPs weresynthesised by precipitation polymerization using coenzyme Q0 as the dummy template, methacrylicacid as the functional monomer, an acetonitrile: water mixture as the porogen, ethylene glycoldimethacrylate as the crosslinker and potassium persulfate as initiator. The nanoparticles were char-acterized by microscopy, capillary electrophoresis, dynamic light scattering, N2adsorption?desorptionisotherms, and infrared spectroscopy. The MIPNPs demonstrated the presence of selective cavities com-plementary to the quinone nucleus of CoQ10, leading to a specific recognition of CoQ10 comparedwith related compounds. In the liver extract the relative CoQ10 peak area (CoQ10 area/total peak area)increased from 4.6% to 25.4% after the DMSPE procedure. The recovery percentage of CoQ10 from theliver matrix was between 70.5% and 83.7% quantified against CoQ10 standard processed under the sameconditions. The DMSPE procedure allows the elution of almost all the CoQ10 retained (99.4%) in a smallvolume (200 L), allowing the sample to be concentrated 2.5 times (LOD: 1.1 g g−1and LOQ: 3.7 g g−1of tissue). The resulted clean up of the sample, the improvement in peak shape and baseline and thereduction of interferences, evidence that the MIPNPs could potentially be applied as sorbent in a DMSPEwith satisfactory results and with a minimum amount of sorbent (1 mg).