Computational design of molecularly imprinted polymer for solid phase extraction of moxifloxacin hydrochloride from Avalox® tablets and spiked human urine samples

In this paper, moxifloxacin hydrochloride molecularly imprinted polymer was used as a selective sorbent for solid phase extraction of moxifloxacin hydrochloride from different matrices. First a computational study was conducted for confirming the optimum composition of the polymer to be used as the sorbent. Then, different parameters were studied during optimization of the solid phase extraction procedures, including; the amount of sorbent, cartridge capacity, composition of the washing and elution solvent. A new UPLC-MS/MS method was developed for the quantification purposes. The newly developed method was validated according to the ICH guidelines in terms of; linearity, limit of detection, limit of quantification, precision and accuracy. The optimized solid phase extraction method coupled with the validated UPLC-MS/MS method was used for the determination of moxifloxacin HCl in Avalox (R) tablets (400 mg/tablet) and in spiked human urine samples. The mean percentage recoveries ranged from 82.21 to 109.36% with percentage relative standard deviation value ranging from 0.0001 to 10.88%.