Recent progress and application of boronate affinity materials in bioanalysis

Cis-diol containing molecules are of great biological significance. The low abundance of cis-diol containing molecules and the complexity of biosamples have posed great challenges for the analysis of these compounds in biosamples. The pH-controlled, covalent and reversible binding property of boronate affinity materials (BAMs) endows them with huge application potential in specific capture, recognition, labeling and assay of cis-diol containing molecules. Recently, much effort has been devoted to improve the performance of BAMs, enabling various promising applications. This review aims at providing a clear interpretation of the principle for performance improvement of BAMs and tries to establish useful guidance for the engineering of BAMs to meet the diverse requirements in bioanalysis. Meanwhile, applications of BAMs in sample preparation, biomolecular recognition and assay, molecular labeling, aptamers selection and cancer therapy are surveyed. Finally, conclusions on recent progress and prospects for the future development in BAMs are presented. •An overview about the performance enhancement strategies of BAMs is presented.•The underlying principle for performance enhancement of BAMs is interpreted.•Recent advances on BAMs with improved performance in bioanalysis are surveyed.•The prospects of BAMs performance development and advanced applications are briefed.