Introduction: Beta-adrenergic blocking agents (beta-blockers), are used in treating various cardiac disorders such as hypertension, angina, congestive heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms. In addition to the therapeutic uses, beta-blockers have been used for performance enhancement by athletes to lower heart rate and reduce tremor. Consequently, the International Olympic Committee has banned this class of compounds. As with most analyses from biological fluids, the major issue is sample clean up prior to analysis. Regardless if it is a plasma sample that requires removal of proteins and lipids or a urine sample that requires removal of salts and proteins, the necessity to remove these endogenous species is crucial for developing a rugged analytical method. In this paper the molecularly imprinted polymers are investigated as a highly selective sample clean up method.

Method: The sample prep method focused on the use of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). These materials are highly cross-linked polymeric phases with predetermined selectivity for a single molecule or group of structurally related molecules. Unlike other SPE phases that do not have specific retention for one compound or class of compounds, the high selectivity of the MIP allows for cleaner samples with less interferences and better recoveries. An SPE (Solid Phase Extraction) method for the determination of beta-blockers from biological matrices was developed using a class selective MIP for the beta-blockers. Six common beta-blockers were used in this study. The chromatographic separation was performed using 2.7um particle size C18 stationary with LC/MS/MS detection.