Zirconium-doped magnetic microspheres for the selective enrichment of cis-diol-containing ribonucleosides

Zirconium-doped magnetic microspheres (Zr-Fe3O4) for the selective enrichment of cis-diol-containing biomolecules were easily synthesized via a one-step hydrothermal method. Characterization of the microspheres revealed that zirconium was successfully doped into the lattice of Fe3O4 at a doping level of 4.0 at%. Zr-Fe3O4 possessed good magnetic properties and high specificity towards cis-diol molecules, as shown using 28 compounds. For ribonucleosides, the adsorbent not only has favorable anti-interferential abilities but also has a high adsorption capacity up to 159.4 μmol/g. As an example of a real application, four ribonucleosides in urine were efficiently enriched and detected via magnetic solid-phase extraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the detection limits were determined to be between 0.005 and 0.017 μg/mL, and the linearities ranged from 0.02 to 5.00 μg/mL (R ≥ 0.996) for these analytes. The accuracy of the analytical method was examined by studying the relative recoveries of the analytes in real urine samples, with recoveries varying from 77.8% to 119.6% (RSDs < 10.6%, n = 6). The results indicate that Zr-Fe3O4 is a suitable adsorbent for the analysis of cis-diol-containing biomolecules in practical applications.