Oxidized dextran facilitated synthesis of a silica-based concanavalin a material for lectin affinity enrichment of glycoproteins/glycopeptides

Lectin affinity chromatography (LAC) is an important enrichment technique in glycoproteomics analysis. In order to improve the effectiveness of enrichment, it is necessary to develop LAC materials with high specificity and efficiency. Herein, using oxidized dextran as the spacer, a silica-based concanavalin A material (SiO2-ODex Con A) was synthesized to enrich glycoproteins/glycopeptides. For comparison, the SiO2-Ald Con A material was synthesized using conventional (3-glycidoxypropyl) triethoxysilane (GPMS) as the initial spacer arm. The analytical merits of both Con A materials, such as non-specific adsorption, binding capacity and trapping efficiency, have been evaluated using ovalbumin. Under high performance liquid affinity chromatography (HPLAC) mode, the SiO2-ODex Con A material was highly effective in the enrichment of glycoproteins/glycopeptides attached to high-mannose-type and bi-antennary complex-type glycans. The promising potential of the SiO2-ODex Con A material was demonstrated by selective fractionation of glycoproteins from complex biological samples for glycosylation analysis.