Highly Selective Enrichment of Glycopeptides Based on Zwitterionically Functionalized Soluble Nanopolymers

Efficient glycopeptides enrichment prior to mass spectrometry analysis is essential for glycoproteome study. ZIC-HILIC (zwitterionic hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography) based glycopeptides enrichment approaches have been attracting more attention for several benefits like easy operating, high enrichment specificity and intact glycopeptide retained. In this study, Poly (amidoamine) dendrimer (PAMAM) was adopted for the synthesis of zwitterionically functionalized (ZICF) materials for glycopeptide enrichment. The multiple branched structure and good solubility of ZICF-PAMAM enables a sufficient interaction with glycopeptides. The ZICF-PAMAM combined with the FASP-mode enrichment strategy exhibits more superior performance compared with the existing methods. It has the minimum detectable concentration of femtomolar level and high recovery rate of over 90.01%, and can efficiently enrich glycopeptides from complex biological samples even for merely 0.1 μL human serum. The remarkable glycopeptides enrichment capacity of ZICF-PAMAM highlights the potential application in in-depth glycoproteome research, which may open up new opportunities for the development of glycoproteomics.