A Smart Glycol‐Directed Nanodevice from Rationally Designed Macroporous Materials

We have developed a smart nanodevice for the highly efficient and selective detection of glycoproteins. This polyfunctional device is fabricated through the rational functionalization of macroporous silica foam (MOSF) materials with a boron species (B‐MOSF) and amino groups (NH 2 ‐MOSF), and then the integration of MOSF, B‐MOSF and NH 2 ‐MOSF materials. In such a device, a macroporous structure with very large‐pore sizes (diameters≈100 nm) and high‐pore volumes (>0.65 cm 3 g −1 ) is advantageous to efficiently fasten the enzymatic reaction. The targeted specific glycopeptides of the products can be selectively isolated and enriched in B‐MOSF through the chemo‐affinity between boronic acid and glycol groups, while the non‐specific peptides are released to the solutions, or further purified by MOSF and NH 2 ‐MOSF, which have opposite charges. As a result, the protein digestion and glycol‐peptide isolation can be simultaneously achieved in the functionalized macroporous materials in one step, which is a great advantage compared to conventional multi‐procedure and time‐consuming techniques.