A novel poly(deep eutectic solvent)-based magnetic silica composite for solid-phase extraction of trypsin.

Novel poly(deep eutectic solvent) grafted silica-coated magnetic microspheres (Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS@PDES) were prepared by polymerization of choline chloride-itaconic acid (ChCl-IA) and γ-MPS-modified magnetic silica composites, and were characterized by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Then the synthetic Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS@PDES microspheres were applied for the magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) of trypsin for the first time. After extraction, the concentration of trypsin in the supernatant was determined by a UV-vis spectrophotometer. Single factor experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of the extraction process, including the concentration of trypsin, the ionic strength, the pH value, the extraction time and the temperature. Experimental results showed the extraction capacity could reach up to 287.5 mg/g under optimized conditions. In comparison with Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS, Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS@PDES displayed higher extraction capacity and selectivity for trypsin. According to the regeneration studies, Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS@PDES microspheres can be recycled six times without significant loss of its extraction capacity, and retained a high extraction capacity of 233 mg/g after eight cycles. Besides, the activity studies also demonstrated that the activity of the extracted trypsin was well retained. Furthermore, the analysis of real sample revealed that the prepared magnetic microspheres can be used to purify trypsin in crude bovine pancreas extract. These results highlight the potential of the proposed Fe3O4@SiO2-MPS@PDES-MSPE method in separation of biomolecules.