Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences (MITILS), Minamiooya 11, Machida-shi, Tokyo 194-8511 Japan.
Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom. 2009 Dec;23(23):3713-9. doi: 10.1002/rcm.4303.
Glycans exist as part of glycoproteins and glycolipids, which are involved in a variety of biological functions. The analysis of glycan structures, particularly that of structural isomers, is fundamentally important since isomeric glycans often show distinct functions; however, a method for their structural elucidation has not yet been established. Anomeric configurations, linkage positions and branching are the major factors in glycans and their alteration results in a large diversity of glycan structures. The analysis of vicinally substituted oligosaccharides is extremely difficult because the product ions formed in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) often have the same m/z values. In our endeavor to address the issue, we analyzed a series of homo-substituted trisaccharides consisting only of glucose by collision-induced dissociation (CID), especially energy-resolved mass spectrometry (ERMS). It was found that these structurally related glycans could be distinguished by taking advantage of differences in their activation energies in ERMS.
糖链存在于糖蛋白和糖脂中，参与多种生物功能。糖链结构的分析，特别是结构异构体的分析非常重要，因为糖链异构体通常具有不同的功能；然而，目前还没有建立其结构解析的方法。糖链的主要结构因素是端基构型、连接位置和支链，其改变会导致大量不同的糖链结构。由于在串联质谱（MS/MS）中形成的产物离子具有相同的 m/z 值，因此邻位取代的寡糖的分析极其困难。在我们努力解决这个问题的过程中，我们通过碰撞诱导解离（CID），特别是能量分辨质谱（ERMS），分析了一系列仅由葡萄糖组成的同取代三糖。结果发现，这些结构相关的聚糖可以通过利用它们在 ERMS 中的活化能差异来区分。
