A dual role of boronate affinity in high-sensitivity detection of vicinal diol brassinosteroids from sub-gram plant tissues via UPLC-MS/MS.

Based on the dual role of specific boronate affinity, making use of both novel self-synthesized boronate affinity-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles and a high-efficiency organic boronic acid-type derivatization reagent, we report a simple, convenient and highly-sensitive method for detection of endogenous brassinosteroids from real plant materials.