Inherently hydrophilic mesoporous channel coupled with metal oxide for fishing endogenous salivary glycopeptides and phosphopeptides

Both glycosylation and phosphorylation exert crucial rule in multitudinous biological processes. For in-depth profiling of glycosylation and phosphorylation, a magnetic metal oxide is effectively coupled with inherently hydrophilic mesoporous channels (denoted as Fe₃O₄@TiO₂@mSiO₂-TSG). Based on the mechanism of hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) and metal oxide affinity chromatography (MOAC), the Fe₃O₄@TiO₂@mSiO₂-TSG nanomaterial shows high capacity for simultaneously enriching glycopeptides and phosphopeptides. With human saliva collected in successive four days as practical biological sample, endogenous glycopeptides and phosphopeptides are efficiently enriched. Further gene ontology analysis reveals that the identified endogenous glycopeptides and phosphopeptides participate in diverse molecular functions and biological processes. This strategy is anticipated to promote variation analysis of salivary post-translational modifications.