Synthesis of biofunctionalized silica nanospheres to separate GST-tagged proteins

•Hollow silica nanospheres (NSs) with Glutatione group (SiO2-GSH) have been prepared.•SiO2-GSH NSs were applied to purify GST-tagged proteins without any preprocessing.•The capacity of separated protein barely changed after three times reuse.•The detection limit is lower than 1.0 × 10−6 mol/L to the target proteins.•The separated capacity of the SiO2-GSH NSs is as much as 89.9 μmol/g.

A Thiol-functionalized silica hollow nanospheres(denoted as SiO2-SH NSs) were prepared through a hydrothermal route. The SiO2-SH NSs were conjugated with glutathione group (denoted asGSH) to afford SiO2-GSH NSs. The as-prepared SiO2-GSH sample has hollow structure and exhibits an average diameter of about 45 nm and a wall thickness of 10 nm. The SiO2-GSH NSs were used to separate three kinds of GST-tagged proteins (GST-tagged GPX, GST-tagged LOV and GST-tagged 210-6P). These SiO2-GSH NSs exhibit negligible non-specific adsorption, high binding capacity (89.9 μmol/g), the low detection limit (1.0 × 10−6 mol/L) and reuse property, showing great potentiality in purifying GST-tagged proteins.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide