Structural analysis of monosulfated side-chain oligosaccharides isolated from human tracheobronchial mucous glycoproteins.

To determine the location of some sulfate esters on respiratory mucins, an unambiguous sequencing strategy was developed for a crude, monosulfated oligosaccharide fraction derived from tracheobronchial mucous glycoproteins, isolated from sputum from a patient with cystic fibrosis, and which possessed Ricinus communis-I lectin affinity. Employing fractionation by Bio-Gel P-2 chromatography and high-voltage paper electrophoresis of the pool, eighteen branched and four straight-chained monosulfated oligosaccharides, each possessing at least one neutral D-galactose residue at a nonreducing terminus, were purified. Desulfated analogs of each sulfated oligosaccharide were then produced. Elucidation of their structures and sulfate ester locations was accomplished through a parallel comparative sequencing approach for the sulfated oligosaccharide and its desulfated analog. The method was based on their carbohydrate composition and parallel analysis by sequential exoglycosidase degradations, endoglycosidase digestion, permethylation analyses, and specific lectin affinities. Key to this approach was the inability for specific exoglycosidases and lectins to cleave or bind to, respectively, carbohydrates of their specificity which occupied nonreducing termini and possessed a sulfate ester. Herein we report the structures of twenty-two novel sulfated oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides ranged from trisaccharides to heptasaccharides, were branched and unbranched, and each possessed a single sulfate ester on either C-6 of a terminal or an internal D-galactose residue or on C-6 of an internal residue of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucose (N-acetyl-D-glucosamine).