The use of multifunctional magnetic mesoporous core/shell heteronanostructures in a biomolecule separation system

A multifunctional magnetic mesoporous core/shell heteronanostructure (designated as Fe(3)O(4)@NiSiO(3)) has been designed and constructed that combined the capacity of effective protein purification from protein mixture and selective low molecule weight (MW) biornolecule enrichment. The nanoparticle is composed by magnetite nanoparticle with immobilized metal ion surface and solid porous shell which presents a number of important features, such as controllable shell thickness, uniform pore size and excellent magnetism. By taking advantages of the high affinity of Ni(2+) on the shell surface toward His-tagged proteins and the fast response toward an assistant magnet, the heteronanoparticles can be applied to selectively bind to and magnetically separate of His-tagged proteins from a cell lysate of E. coli. Additionally, owing to the homogeneous 3D mesopores on the nickel silicate shell, the heteronanoparticles can selectively capture low MW biomolecules from complex mixture. Significantly, it is expected that this approach can be extended to other biomolecule separation and enrichment systems by changing the immobilized surface and the pore size. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.