Highly sensitive determination of amanita toxins in biological samples using β-cyclodextrin collaborated molecularly imprinted polymers coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.

In this work, a β-cyclodextrin functional vinyl monomer was synthesized and the common moiety of five amanita toxins was used as the template for preparing molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). Chemical calculation was used to evaluate and describe the binding interactions between the template and the functional monomer. The preparation conditions were optimized and the resultant MIPs were characterized and employed as solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbents. The SPE conditions including the amount of sorbent, extraction solution, and eluting solution were also optimized for the enrichment of the five toxins. Using an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS), detection limits ranging from 0.34-0.42 µg/L, 0.16-0.33 µg/L, and 0.035-0.056 µg/kg were achieved for the five toxins in serum, urine and liver samples, respectively. The proposed method was further applied to the determination of the amanita toxins in suspected samples and showed great potential in the diagnosis of mushroom poisoning.