Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Solid Phase Extraction followed by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography as an Efficient and Sensitive Technique for Determination of Meropenem in Human Plasma and Urine

A new and selective sorbent for molecularly imprinted polymer solid-phase extraction (MIP-SPE) was prepared to extract meropenem from plasma and urine samples. The extracted analyte was analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with photodiode array detection. Methacrylic acid (MAA) as functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linker, azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator and meropenem as a template molecule were used for the MIP preparation. Imprinted meropenem molecule was removed from the polymeric structure using acetonitrile in water (1:9, v/v), as the eluent solvent. Under the optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 35 and 120 μg L, respectively. The developed MIP-SPE method demonstrates that it could be applied for the determination of meropenem in plasma and urine samples.