A series of imprinted polymers targeting nucleoside metabolites, prepared using a template analogue approach, are presented. These were prepared following selection of the optimum functional monomer by solution association studies using (1)H NMR titrations whereby methacrylic acid was shown to be the strongest receptor with and affinity constant of 62151Lmol(-1)vs. 11016Lmol(-1) for acrylamide. The best performing polymers were prepared using methanol as porogenic co-solvent and although average binding site affinities were marginally reduced, 2.3_10(4)Lmol(-1)vs. 2.7_10(4)Lmol(-1) measured for a polymer prepared in acetonitrile, these polymers contained the highest number of binding sites, 5.27molg(-1)vs. 1.64molg(-1), while they also exhibited enhanced selectivity for methylated guanosine derivatives. When applied as sorbents in the extraction of nucleoside derivative cancer biomarkers from synthetic urine samples, significant sample clean-up and recoveries of up to 90% for 7-methylguanosine were achieved.
