Preparation of molecularly imprinted adsorptive resin for trapping of ligustrazine from the traditional Chinese herb Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort

A highly selective molecularly imprinted adsorptive resin for ligustrazine was prepared by melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MUF) gel. In the experiments, two pieces of MUF gel were synthesized firstly; one was added ligustrazine hydrochloride as the template molecule in it to prepare the imprinted adsorptive resin, and the other was not. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that both resins were the porous with a network structure whether or not it was added template molecule. The imprinted adsorptive resin had an absorbability of 85.22% measured by a 200 mg L⁻¹ solution of ligustrazine hydrochloride at room temperature. The resin of MUF without template, on the other hand, displayed an adsorption capacity of almost zero. It illuminated the imprinted adsorptive resin formed ligustrazine recognition sites when the template molecule had been eluted. In the present paper, ligustrazine was effectively separated and enriched from herbs by using a solid-phase adsorptive column filled with the imprinted adsorptive resin. Its eluate, obtained from three kinds of solvents, was analyzed by GC-MS, and the results indicated that the imprinted adsorptive resin showed a high selectivity for ligustrazine. This is believed to be beneficial for extracting natural and highly purified ligustrazine.