TiO2-Based SPE for the Purification of 2′-O-Methylated Ribonucleosides from RNA.
2′-O-Methylation is present in various cellular RNAs and has been considered crucial for RNA functionality and biogenesis.
32,33 As the 2′-Omethylated modifications exist on RNA chains, it is even impossible for a traditional enzymatic digestion method to clear up the normal ribonucleosides. Here, we employed the TiO2- based SPE method to purify 2′-O-methylated ribonucleosides from the bulky unmodified ribonucleosides in RNA of HeLa cells.
As shown in Figure 6A, the signals of the high-abundance normal ribonucleosides dominated the chromatogram by direct analysis.
While after extraction, all the high-abundance normal ribonucleosides have been entirely removed, and only 2′-Omethylated ribonucleosides were observed (Figure 6B).
The results provided a proof-of-concept for the enrichment of 2′-Omethylated modified ribonucleosides from bulky normal ribonucleosides, which can be further applied to the purification
of other relevant modified ribonucleosides (such as modifications in both the nucleobase and 2′ position of the pentose) for their subsequent sensitive analysis.