Boronic Acid-Modified Magnetic Fe3O4@mTiO2 Microspheres for Highly Sensitive and Selective Enrichment of N-Glycopeptides in Amniotic Fluid

Although mesoporous materials and magnetic materials are used to enrich glycopeptides, materials sharing both mesoporous structures and magnetic properties have not been reported for glycopeptide analyses. Here we prepared boronic acid-modified magnetic Fe3O4@mTiO(2) microspheres by covalent binding of boronic acid molecules onto the surfaces of silanized Fe3O4@mTiO(2) microspheres. The final particles (denoted as B-Fe3O4@mTiO(2)) showed a typical magnetic hysteresis curve, indicating superparamagnetic behavior; meanwhile, their mesoporous sizes did not change in spite of the reduction in surface area and pore volume. By using these particles together with conventional poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanobeads, we then developed a synergistic approach for highly specific and efficient enrichment of N-glycopeptides/glycoproteins. Owing to the introduction of PMMA nanobeads that have strong adsorption towards nonglycopeptides, the number of N-glycopeptides detected and the signal-to-noise ratio in analyzing standard proteins mixture both increased appreciably. The recovery of N-glycopeptides by the synergistic method reached 92.1%, much improved than from B-Fe3O4@mTiO(2) alone that was 75.3%. Finally, we tested this approach in the analysis of amniotic fluid, obtaining the maximum number and ratio of N-glycopeptides compared to the use of B-Fe3O4@mTiO(2) alone and commercial SiMAG-boronic acid particles. This ensemble provides an interesting and efficient enrichment platform for glycoproteomics research.