Solid-phase extraction of ursolic acid from herb using β-cyclodextrin-based molecularly imprinted microspheres

A new method was employed to solid-phase extract ursolic acid from Ilex kudingcha C. J. Tseng using molecularly imprinted microspheres (MIMs) as the sorbent. Using a surface molecular imprinting technique, MIMs for ursolic acid were prepared with bonded β-CD and acrylamide in combination based on functionalized poly(glycidyl methacrylate) microspheres (F-PGMA). Compared with non-MIMs (NIMs), MIMs showed high adsorption capacity, significant selectivity, and good site accessibility for ursolic acid. The maximum static adsorption capacities of the MIMs and NIMs for ursolic acid were 42.5 and 4.9 μmol/g, respectively. Chromatographic analysis shows that ursolic acid and oleanolic acid could be separated well when MIMs were used as the stationary phase of HPLC. The conditions of molecularly imprinted SPE (MISPE) of ursolic acid from the herb extract were optimized using different concentrations of ethanol solutions as loading, washing, and eluting solutions. The successful extraction of ursolic acid by MIMs provided a possible innovative approach to separate ursolic acid from herb.