Structural characterization of sulfated glycosaminoglycans by fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry: application to heparin fragments prepared by chemical synthesis.

We report herein the results of f.a.b.-m.s. experiments conducted on synthetic fragments of glycosaminoglycans, one of them representing the pentasaccharidic sequence present in heparin and responsible for the binding to antithrombin III, and the others being related to this sequence. The results indicate that f.a.b.-m.s. can be very useful for the structural analysis of sulfated glycosaminoglycans. The relatively small amounts of sample required enable molecular characterization at physiologically significant levels. In contrast to the chondroitin sulfates, the heparin saccharides analyzed and reported here do not provide sequence information. The data indicate that glycosidic rupture is not a process competing with the much more facile loss of N-sulfite residues. Dominating the spectra are a series of molecular-weight-related ions (distributed to indicate the associated countercation composition), and fragments related directly to sulfite elimination. This f.a.b.-induced, facile loss of sulfite may impose limitations in molecular-weight analysis for the larger oligomers.