Facile synthesis of boronate-decorated polyethyleneimine-grafted hybrid magnetic nanoparticles for the highly selective enrichment of modified nucleosides and ribosylated metabolites.

Ribosylated metabolites, especially modified nucleosides, have been extensively evaluated as cancer-related biomarkers. Boronate adsorbents are considered to be promising materials for extracting them from complex matrices. However, the enrichment of ribosylated metabolites in low abundance is still a challenge due to the limited capacity and selectivity of the existing boronate adsorbents. In this study, a novel type of magnetic nanoparticles named Fe3O4@SiO2@PEI-FPBA was synthesized by grafting polyethyleneimine (PEI) onto the surface of Fe3O4@SiO2 before modification by boronate groups. The high density of the amino groups on the PEI chains supplied a large number of binding sites for boronate groups. Thus, the adsorption capacity (1.34 ± 0.024 mg/g) of the nanoparticles, which is 6- to 7-fold higher than that of analogous materials, was greatly improved. The unreacted secondary amines and tertiary amines of the PEI enhanced the aqueous solubility of the nanoparticles, which could efficiently reduce no...