Towards the development of molecularly imprinted artificial receptors for the screening of estrogenic chemicals

Molecularly imprinted polymers are prepared using various steroid compounds as the templates. The imprinted polymers can selectively re-bind the origi nal print molecules, which leads to versatile potential applications. The f easibility of using these artificial receptors to replace their biological counterparts for preliminary screening of a chemical library is demonstrate d. A steroid library composed of 22 closely related compounds is screened w ith an estrogen specific polymer. The print molecule is identified with acc uracy and structural similarities of other members are correlated with norm alized retention indices. Molecularly imprinted artificial receptors are en visioned as being useful for screening purposes in drug discovery or for id entifying endocrine-disrupting chemicals.