Elucidating the effect of different amino-functionalized spherical mesoporous silica characteristics on ribonucleic acid selectivity and adsorption capacity

Purifying ribonucleic acid (RNA) obtained from cells is an essential process in gene analysis and is generally performed using a polythymine oligonucleotide column and an organic solvent. However, these procedures are expensive and complicated. In the present study, we discovered that amino silica with a particle size of 50 nm was able to selectively adsorb RNA and investigated how varying the parameters of this material (i.e. mesopore existence, particle size, surface amino content, and pore diameter) affected the amount of RNA it could adsorb and its selective adsorption ability. Particle size and surface amino content were found to be important factors for RNA/deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) value (RNA adsorption amount/DNA adsorption amount), and the presence of mesopores was found to promote the amount of nucleic acid that could be adsorbed. Mesoporous silica (MPS) with a particle size of 50 nm was synthesized using a 12/1 ratio of tetraethoxysilne/aminopropyltriethoxysilane, which acts as a silica source. The MPS was also found to have a high RNA adsorption capacity (272.6 μg/mg) and RNA selective adsorption ability (RNA/DNA value = 11.1).