Characterization of the binding strengths between boronic acids and cis-diol-containing biomolecules by affinity capillary electrophoresis

The affinity of boronic acids toward cis-diol-containing biomolecules has found wide applications in many fields, such as sensing, separation, drug delivery, and functional materials. A sound understanding of the binding interactions will greatly facilitate exquisite applications of this chemistry. Traditional techniques are associated with some apparent drawbacks, so they are only applicable to a limited range of boronic acids and cis-diol-containing biomolecules. This chapter describes an affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) method for the characterization of the binding strengths between boronic acids and cis-diol-containing biomole-cules. As compared with existing approaches, such as¹¹B NMR, the ACE method exhibits several significant advantages: (1) possibility of simultaneous study of multiple interactions, (2) low requirement on the purity of the binding species, (3) widely applicable to almost all types of cis-diol-containing compounds and boronic acids, and (4) high accuracy and precision.