Highly specific purification of N-glycans using phosphate-based derivatization as an affinity tag in combination with Ti-SPE enrichment for mass spectrometric analysis

N-linked protein glycosylation is involved in regulation of a wide variety of cellular processes and associated with numerous diseases. Highly specific identification of N-glycome remains a challenge while its biological significance is acknowledged. The relatively low abundance of glycan in complex biological mixtures, lack of basic sites for protonation, and suppression by other highly abundant proteins/peptides lead to the particularly poor detection sensitivity of N-glycans in the MS analysis. Therefore, the highly specific purification procedure becomes a crucial step prior to MS analysis of the N-glycome. Herein, a novel N-glycans enrichment approach based on phosphate derivatization combined with Ti⁴⁺-SPE (solid phase extraction) was developed. Briefly, in this strategy, N-glycans were chemically labeled with a phospho-group at their reducing ends, such that the Ti⁴⁺-SPE microspheres were able to capture the phospho-containing glycans. The enrichment method was developed and optimized using model oligosaccharides (maltoheptaose DP7 and sialylated glycan A1) and also glycans from a standard glycoprotein (asialofetuin, ASF). This method experimentally showed high derivatization efficiency (almost 100%), excellent selectivity (analyzing DP7 in the digests of bovine serum albumin at a mass ratio of 1:100), high enriching recovery (90%), good reproducibility (CV<15%) as well as high sensitivity (LOD at fmol level). At last, the proposed method was successfully applied in the profiling of N-glycome in human serum, in which a total of 31 N-glycan masses were identified.     

Large‐scale Enrichment of Sulfur‐containing Acid in Acetonitrile Using Triazine Analog as the Derivatizing Reagent for Desorption from Humic‐fraction‐modified Silica Gel

The analog of triazine is used as the derivatizing reagent for enriching large‐scale acid (e.g. amino acid) containing a sulfur atom on the humic‐fraction‐modified silica gel in acetonitrile and desorbing from the adsorbent in hexane, respectively. The percent yield of the chemical derivatization under alkaline conditions, ranging from about 8 to almost 100 %, is pH dependent, and varies significantly among these examined analytes, believed to be due to the structure of the analyte, not the derivatizing reagent. The percentage of enrichment, not reproducible under an aqueous environment and independent of the type of triazine analogs, reaches almost 100 % in all cases. The force leading to the adsorption is the complexation between carboxyl groups on analyte and a humic‐fraction‐modified adsorbent based on the adsorption equilibrium results. Consequently, these results are not reproducible under ethyl ether or methanol environments due to the competition for binding sites from solvent molecules.     

A dual-functional membrane for bisphenol A enrichment and resonance amplification by surface-enhanced Raman scattering

A dual-functional membrane with enrichment and resonance amplification property, combined with an automatic sampler was designed for bisphenol A detection by surface-enhanced Raman scattering.     

Atmospheric Pb levels over Mount Qomolangma region

The Pb spectral concentration of atmospheric aerosol samples observed over Mount Qomolangma site (28°11'33"N, 86°49'59"E, 4950 m ASL) in 2002 was 13.3 ng/m3, about 4.5 times higher than that in 2000. The Pb spectral distribution showed three peaks, located at <0.25 μm, 0.5-1 μm, and 4-8 μm in diameters. The peaks for <0.25 μm and 0.25-0.5 μm may be due to long-distant transport, while that for 4-8 μm probably results from local floating dust. The atmospheric Pb concentration over Mount Qomolangma was lower than that of South Pole, most of the urban areas, and desert areas in the northem hemisphere. The enrichment factors for fine and coarse particles of atmospheric Pb in 2002 over Mount Qomolangma were 413.2 and 62.6, respectively, in support of the slight atmospheric pollution with Pb over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.     

Sorbent materials for separation and preconcentration of gold in environmental and geological samples – A review

Determination of gold in environmental and geological samples requires very often preconcentration and separation due to the high concentration of interfering matrix components and the low content of this metal. Solid phase extraction technique with different kind of solid sorbents offers for this purpose high enrichment factor, rapid phase separation and the ability of combination with different detection techniques. It can be easily implemented and controlled in flow systems, The recent developments in this area are presented and discussed.     

Virtual fragment screening: an exploration of various docking and scoring protocols for fragments using Glide

Fragment-based drug discovery approaches allow for a greater coverage of chemical space and generally produce high efficiency ligands. As such, virtual and experimental fragment screening are increasingly being coupled in an effort to identify new leads for specific therapeutic targets. Fragment docking is employed to create target-focussed subset of compounds for testing along side generic fragment libraries. The utility of the program Glide with various scoring schemes for fragment docking is discussed. Fragment docking results for two test cases, prostaglandin D2 synthase and DNA ligase, are presented and compared to experimental screening data. Self-docking, cross-docking, and enrichment studies are performed. For the enrichment runs, experimental data exists indicating that the docking decoys in fact do not inhibit the corresponding enzyme being examined. Results indicate that even for difficult test cases fragment docking can yield enrichments significantly better than random. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Enrichment and low‐level determination of glyphosate,aminomethylphosphonic acid and glufosinate in drinking water after cleanup by cation exchange resin

For the determination of glyphosate, aminomethylphosphonic acid and glufosinate in drinking water, different procedures of enrichment and cleanup were examined using anion exchange or SPE. In many cases interactions of, e.g. alkaline earth metal ions especially calcium could be observed during enrichment and cleanup resulting in loss of analytes. For that reason, a novel cleanup and enrichment procedure for the determination of these phosphonic acid herbicides has been developed in drinking water using cation‐exchange resin. In summary, the cleanup procedure with cation‐exchange resin developed in this study avoids interactions as described above and is applicable to calcium‐rich drinking water samples. After derivatization with 9‐fluorenylmethylchloroformate followed by LC with fluorescence detection, LOD of 12, 14 and 12 ng/L and mean recoveries from real‐world drinking water samples of 98±9, 100±16 and 101±11% were obtained for glyphosate, aminomethylphosphonic acid and glufosinate, respectively. The low LODs and the high precision permit the analysis of these phosphonic acid herbicides according to the guidelines of the European Commission.     

模拟全血基体中铅及其同位素的富集与分离研究

利用富集分离方法,克服高浓度基体对铅浓度及铅同位素测定的影响。应用专利方法对模拟全血基体中的铅进行富集分离,用ICP-MS测定富集分离前后的铅浓度、基体浓度及铅同位素比值。富集分离后的铅回收率均在99%以上,对Na和K等主要离子的去除率约为80%;各个铅同位素的浓度值随着基体浓度的增大而减小(p<0.001),但铅各同位素的比值则与基体浓度无关;当基体浓度>62.5μg.mL-1时,各个铅同位素强度会随着测定次数的增加而迅速衰减。富集分离专利方法对复杂基体中痕量铅的回收率高,对杂质离子的去除率较好;明显消除了高浓度基体对ICP-MS进样系统的堵塞现象,操作简便、成本低、引入污染少,可以提高各个铅同位素浓度测定的准确度和精密度,且对铅同位素比值测定准确度无明显影响。     

Synthesis and characterisation of morin-functionalised silica gel for the enrichment of some precious metal ions

Silica gel was firstly functionalised with aminopropyltrimethoxysilane obtaining the aminopropylsilica gel (APSG). The APSG was reacted subsequently with morin yielding morin-bonded silica gel (morin-APSG). The structure was investigated and confirmed by elemental and thermogravimetric analyses, IR and (13)C NMR spectral studies. Morin-APSG was found to be highly stable in common organic solvents, acidic medium (<2molL(-1) HCl, HNO(3)) or alkaline medium up to pH 8. The separation and preconcentration of Ag(I), Au(III), Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(III) from aqueous medium using morin-APSG was studied. The optimum pH values for the separation of Ag(I), Au(III), Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(III) on the sorbent are 5.7, 2.2, 3.7, 3.7 and 6.8, giving rise to separation efficiencies of 43.9, 85.9, 97.7, 60.9 and 91.0%, respectively, where the activity was found to be >90% in the presence of acetate ion. The ion sorption capacity of morin-APSG towards Cu(II) at pH 5.5 was found to be 0.249mmolg(-1) where the sorption capacities of Ag(I) and Pd(II) were 0.087 and 0.121mmolg(-1) and 0.222 and 0.241mmolg(-1) at pH 2.2 and 5.7, respectively. This indicates a 1:1 and 1:2 morin/metal ratios at pH 2.2 and 5.7, respectively. Complete elution of the sorbed metal ions was carried out using 10mL (0.5molL(-1) HCl+0.01molL(-1) thiourea) in case of Au(III), Pd(II), Pt(II) and Rh(III) and 10mL 0.5molL(-1) HNO(3) in case of Ag(I). Morin-APSG was successfully employed in the separation and preconcentration of the investigated precious metal ions from some spiking water samples yielding 100-folds concentration factor. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) and the T-test (|t|(1)) were calculated.     

巯基壳聚糖富集火焰原子吸收光谱法测定天然水体中Pb2+和Cd2+ 的研究

利用自己研制的巯基壳聚糖对Pb^2 和Cd^2 具有良好的吸附效果这一特性，建立了巯基壳聚糖分离富集原子吸收光谱法测定天然水体中Pb^2 和Cd^2 的新方法，研究了最佳吸附和脱附条件，该法对Pb^2 和Cd^2 的准确检测下限可达到1.00μg/L和0.050μg/L。回收率分别达到96.5%和97.6%。该法灵敏度高，选择性好，用于实际水样的测定取得了满意的。