Monomer compounds from natural products are the major source of active pharmaceutical molecules, which provide great opportunities for discovering of new drugs. However, natural products contain a large number of rather complex compounds. It is difficult to obtain high-purity monomer compounds from complex natural products. Herein, we developed molecularly imprinted macroporous adsorption resins (MIRs-PDA) for the selective adsorption of target monomer compounds from natural products. The response surface methodology was employed to optimize the fabrication parameters. The separation performance of MIRs-PDA for the representative monomer compound rutin was thoroughly studied. We found that MIRs-PDA presented large adsorption capacity (107.82 mg/g), high selectivity (selectivity coefficient was 2.90), good repeatability, and reusability. MIRs-PDA can reach 78.5% equilibrium adsorption capacity in 20 min, showing quick binding kinetic behavior. Furthermore, MIRs-PDA showed good selective and specific adsorption performance for rutin from a representative real sample of Fagopyrum tataricum extract solution. The study of the adsorption mechanism showed that the adsorption of rutin on MIRs-PDA was spontaneous and thermodynamically feasible. The kinetic parameters adapted well to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and there existed equivalent binding sites in MIRs-PDA. The MIRs-PDA show promising application prospects for the separation of monomer compounds in natural products.
Keywords: macroporous adsorption resin; molecular imprinting technology; monomer compound; natural product; separation and purification.
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