Arshad Usman, Mujahid Adnan, Lieberzeit Peter, Afzal Adeel, Bajwa Sadia Zafar, Iqbal Naseer, Roshan Sumaira
Institute of Chemistry, University of the Punjab Lahore-54590 Pakistan
Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Vienna Waehringer Strasse 42 Vienna A-1090 Austria.
RSC Adv. 2020 Sep 16;10(57):34355-34363. doi: 10.1039/d0ra04785f.
Monitoring antimalarial drugs is necessary for clinical assays, human health, and routine quality control practices in pharmaceutical industries. Herein, we present the development of sensor coatings based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) combined with quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) for sensitive and selective gravimetric detection of an antimalarial drug: artemether. The MIP coatings are synthesized by using artemether as the template in a poly(methacrylic acid--ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) matrix. Artemether-MIP and the non-imprinted polymer (NIP) control or reference layers are deposited on 10 MHz dual-electrode QCM by spin coating (187 ± 9 nm layer thickness after optimization). The coatings are characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy that reveal marked differences among the MIP and NIP. The MIP-QCM sensor exhibits high sensitivity (0.51 Hz ppm) with sub-10 ppm detection and quantification limits. The MIP-QCM sensor also exhibits a 6-fold higher sensitivity compared to the NIP-QCM, and a dynamic working range of 30-100 ppm. The response time of MIP-QCM devices for a single cycle of analyte adsorption, signal saturation, and MIP regeneration is less than 2.5 min. The sensor also demonstrates selectivity factors of artemether-MIP of 2.2 and 4.1 compared to artemisinin and lumefantrine, respectively. Reversibility tests reveal less than 5% variation in sensor responses over three cycles of measurements at each tested concentration. The MIP-QCM showed lower detection limits than conventional HPLC-UV, and faster response time compared to HPLC-UV and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS).
监测抗疟药物对于临床检测、人类健康以及制药行业的常规质量控制实践而言是必要的。在此，我们展示了基于分子印迹聚合物（MIP）与石英晶体微天平（QCM）相结合的传感器涂层的开发，用于对抗疟药物蒿甲醚进行灵敏且选择性的重量检测。MIP涂层是通过以蒿甲醚为模板在聚（甲基丙烯酸 - 乙二醇二甲基丙烯酸酯）基质中合成的。通过旋涂（优化后层厚度为187±9纳米）将蒿甲醚 - MIP以及非印迹聚合物（NIP）对照或参考层沉积在10兆赫兹双电极QCM上。通过傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）和原子力显微镜对涂层进行表征，结果显示MIP和NIP之间存在显著差异。MIP - QCM传感器具有高灵敏度（0.51赫兹/ppm），检测和定量限低于10 ppm。与NIP - QCM相比，MIP - QCM传感器的灵敏度也高出6倍，动态工作范围为30 - 100 ppm。MIP - QCM器件对于分析物吸附、信号饱和以及MIP再生的单个循环的响应时间小于2.5分钟。与青蒿素和本芴醇相比，该传感器还分别展示出蒿甲醚 - MIP的选择性因子为2.2和4.1。可逆性测试表明，在每个测试浓度下进行三个测量循环时，传感器响应的变化小于5%。MIP - QCM显示出比传统的高效液相色谱 - 紫外检测法（HPLC - UV）更低的检测限，并且与HPLC - UV和液相色谱 - 质谱联用（LC - MS）相比响应时间更快。
