An artificial model for the natural enzyme carboxypeptidase A has been constructed by molecular imprinting in synthetic polymers. The tetrahedral transition state analogues (TSAs 4 and 5) for the carbonate hydrolysis have been designed as templates to allow incorporation of the main catalytic elements, an amidinium group and a Zn2+ or Cu2+ center, in a defined orientation in the transition state imprinted active site. The complexation of the functional monomer and the template in presence of Cu2+ through stoichiometric noncovalent interaction was established on the basis of H-1 NMR studies and potentiometric titration. The Cu2+ center was introduced into the imprinted cavity during polymerization or by substitution of Zn2+ in Zn2+ imprinted polymers. The direct introduction displayed obvious advantages in promoting catalytic efficiency. With substrates exhibiting a very similar structure to the template, an extraordinarily high enhancement of the rate of catalyzed to uncatalyzed reaction (k(cat)/k(uncat)) of 10(5)-fold was observed. If two amidinium moieties are introduced in proximity to one Cu2+ center in the imprinted cavity by complexation of the functional monomer 3 with the template 5, the imprinted catalysts exhibited even higher activities and efficiencies for the carbonate hydrolysis with kcat/kuncat as high as 410 000. These are by far the highest values obtained for molecularly imprinted catalysts, and they are also considerably higher compared to catalytic antibodies. Our kinetic studies and competitive inhibition experiments with the TSA template showed a clear indication of a very efficient imprinting procedure. In addition, this demonstrates the important role of the transition state stabilization during the catalysis of this reaction.