stays below toxic levels), and, above all, it should be specific to the target drug to avoid side

encapsulation of other undesired molecules present in the blood stream. In an attempt to design

nanoparticulate systems with increased specifieity and high encapsulation capacities, we report

in this chapter our investigations on the potential for molecularly imprinted nanoparticles to be

used as encapsulating agents in drug detoxification therapy.

 The imprinting strategy in this work uses the non-covalent imprinting approach.73,257 The

synthesis of polymers molecularly imprinted in the bulk with various toxic drugs has been

extensively reported.69,258 Moreover, the possibility of synthesizing molecularly imprinted

nanoparticles has been recently demonstrated.259 With a view toward in vivo drug detoxification

applications, we report here for the first time the synthesis of nanoparticles molecularly

imprinted with amitriptyline (Figure 7-1), which is a commonly used tricyclic antidepressant that

may cause cardiac toxicity at high concentration, and the results of their uptake abilities in

aqueous solutions under physiological pH conditions.









 Amitriptyline Bupivacaine

Figure 7-1. Chemical structures of amitriptyline and bupivacaine.

 7.2 Results and Discussion

 Miniemulsion polymerizations have attracted much attention in the past because of their

great potential in synthesizing nanosized spheres with a variety of properties and applications.260

Tovar and co-workers were to our knowledge the first to report about the potential of

miniemulsion polymerization to synthesize molecularly imprinted nanoparticles by the non-