Design and synthesis of an immobilized metal affinity chromatography and metal oxide affinity chromatography hybrid material for improved phosphopeptide enrichment

- A novel IMAC and MOAC hybrid material was synthesized for enlarging phosphopeptide enrichment coverage.
- This material showed excellent enrichment sensitivity and capability towards phosphopeptides.
- The designed hybrid material enriched more phosphopeptides than single IMAC or MOAC strategy from complex sample.
- This work opens up a strategy which combined various methods in one material for effective enrich phosphopeptide.

Reversible phosphorylation of proteins is one of the most important post-translational modifications, while the detection of phosphopeptides is difficult due to their low abundance and the signal suppression of nonphosphorylated peptides. Therefore, selective enrichment of phosphopeptides from highly complicated mixtures is vital for MS-based phosphoproteome analysis. Despite various strategies have been developed, there is no single method that is capable of providing full coverage of the whole phosphoproteome. Metal oxide affinity chromatography (MOAC) enrichment preferably singly phosphopeptides, whereas immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) enrichment bias towards multiply phosphopeptides. In this study, first example of IMAC and MOAC hybrid material, Fe3O4@nSiO2@mSiO2/TiO2-Ti4+ nanoparticles were successfully synthesized for the enrichment of phosphopeptides with the aim to combining their advantages for enrich both mono- and multi-phosphorylated species. The TiO2 was firstly coated on the surface of mesoporous silica and then grafted with 3-(trihydroxysilyl)propyl methylphosphonate (THPMP) to chelate Ti4+ ions. This novel type of hybird material with high surface areas (179.3 m2/g) exhibited good adsorption capacity (133 mg/g) towards standard tryptic digest of β-casein and the method based on this material also showed good sensitivity (4 pmol). The synthesized Fe3O4@nSiO2@mSiO2/TiO2-Ti4+ microspheres were further used to selectively enrich phosphopeptides from complex biosamples, seven mono-phosphopeptides and eight multi-phosphopeptides were successfully enriched from nonfat milk which is much better than single IMAC or MOAC strategy. Those results indicated that Fe3O4@nSiO2@mSiO2/TiO2-Ti4+ microspheres have potential applications in MS-based phosphoproteomics to enlarge phosphoproteomics coverage and this work was expected to open up a promising strategy which combined the advantages of various methods in one material for effective enrich phosphorylated peptides.