Zirconium oxide aerogel for effective enrichment of phosphopeptides with high binding capacity

In this study, zirconium oxide (ZrO2) aerogel was synthesized via a green sol-gel approach, with zirconium oxychloride, instead of the commonly used alkoxide with high toxicity, as the precursor. With such material, phosphopeptides from the digests of 4 pmol of beta-casein with the coexistence of 100 times (mol ratio) BSA could be selectively captured, and identified by MALDI-TOF MS. Due to the large surface area (416.0 m(2) g(-1)) and the mesoporous structure (the average pore size of 10.2 nm) of ZrO2 aerogel, a 20-fold higher loading capacity for phosphopeptide, YKVPQLEIVPN[pS]AEER (MW 1952.12), was obtained compared to that of commercial ZrO2 microspheres (341.5 vs. 17.87 mg g(-1)). The metal oxide aerogel was further applied in the enrichment of phosphopeptides from 100 ng nonfat milk, and 17 phosphopeptides were positively identified, with a 1.5-fold improvement in phosphopeptide detection compared with previously reported results. These results demonstrate that ZrO2 aerogel can be a powerful enrichment material for phosphoproteome study.