Class-specific determination of fluoroquinolones based on a novel chemiluminescence system with molecularly imprinted polymers

A ultrasensitive chemiluminescence (CL) method for the determination of fluoroquinolones (FQs) in milk was proposed based on the enhancement effect of FQs on the CL reaction between cerium(IV) and methoxylated Cypridina luciferin analogs (MCLA). Prior to the CL determination, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with superior recognition performances were adopted to the clean-up and extraction of the family of FQs. Then the developed CL system coupling with MIPs (MIP-CL) was applied to the selective determination of FQs in milk. Under the optimized conditions, the method was validated with respect to linearity, precision, accuracy, limits of detection and quantification. The relative standard deviation (RSD) on intra-day assay was below 5.1%, and detection limit was as low as 0.10 nmol/L. The consistency of this method and HPLC method was compared and validated by the paired t-test. The results indicated that the proposed method allowed class-specific determination of FQs in complex matrices.