Resol/triblock copolymer composite-guided smart fabrication of carbonized mesopores for efficiently decoding exosomal glycans

Soft-template carbonized mesopores were developed for the purpose of enriching urinary exosomal glycans through organic–organic self-assembly using block copolymers and resol precursors. With a high surface area of 229 m 2 g −1 , a small pore size of 3.1 nm, and a significant amount of carbon that specifically interacts with oligosaccharides in glycans, this carbonized mesopore material exhibits high selectivity and low limits of detection (5 ng μL −1 ) towards glycans. Our analysis of complex urine samples from healthy volunteers and bladder carcinoma patients successfully profiled 48 and 56 exosomal glycans, respectively, and 16 of them were significantly changed. Moreover, one upregulated bisecting N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc)-type glycan with core fucose, two upregulated and two downregulated terminal-sialylated glycans were revealed to be linked to bladder carcinoma. This approach is of significant importance for understanding diseases that arise from protein glycosylation mutations, and it may contribute to the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for bladder carcinoma. Graphical Abstract