Selective extraction and enrichment of glycoproteins based on boronate affinity SPME and determination by CIEF-WCID

In this study, a new thin-film boronic acid coating was developed for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) followed by capillary isoelectric focusing with whole-column imaging detection (CIEF-WCID). Boronate functionalized particles of phenylboronic acid (PBA) and 3-aminophenylboronic acid (3-aPBA) were utilized as boronate affinity solid phase coating on thin-film stainless steel blades for selective extraction and enrichment of glycoproteins. The process of extraction and elution could be easily controlled by adjusting pH. To test specificity, asialofetuin and lactoferrin were selected as glycoproteins test molecules, while BSA and myoglobin were used as control non-glycoproteins in this study. The boronate affinity coating was characterized. The effect of buffer, pH, extraction profiles and elution profiles were investigated. The developed method was successfully applied to extract glycoproteins from standard buffer, PBS, human plasma and 10-fold diluted human blood using two kinds of boronate affinity blades. Boronate affinity SPME could be a promising tool for selective extraction and enrichment of low-abundance glycoproteins in real biological samples.