LAUSR

Separation and labeling are the crucial steps for the carbohydrates identification and detection in the important field of biochemistry, biomedicine, glycomics, and glycobiology. Herein, for the first time, a boronic acid decorated defective metal–organic framework (B-D-MI-100) nanoreactor is designed, which integrates fast separation and labeling of carbohydrates into one step. Without the sacrifice of internal room space, the incorporation of abundant functional boronic acid groups into the framework is achieved through metal–ligand–fragment coassembly strategy. And the novel solid phase orientation labeling approach performed within elaborate Cr based B-D-MIL-100 nanoreactor is facile to avoid the conformation transition of carbohydrates occurred in classical liquid-phase labeling. As a result, the novel approach presents several merits, including high separation efficiency (almost all of the incorporated boronic acid groups are available), much fast labeling reaction speed (labeling reaction time is decreased from 7 h to 3 min), high purity of the product, and three orders of magnitude lower applicable carbohydrate concentration for labeling. Thus, this new approach advances the idea to efficiently detect and identify trace carbohydrates in important fields such as glycomics and glycobiology.