Structural elucidation of a variety of GalNAc-containing N-linked oligosaccharides from human urinary kallidinogenase.

Fifteen different structures of terminal GalNAc-containing N-linked oligosaccharides from human urinary kallidinogenase have been identified. These N-linked oligosaccharides were mostly neutral, because sialic acid content was lower than 0.13 mol of sialic acid/mol of sugar chain, and sulfate was not detected. The oligosaccharides were released from pepsin-digested protein by glycoamidase A (from almond) digestion. The reducing ends of the oligosaccharide chains were aminated with a fluorescent reagent, 2-aminopyridine. The resulting mixture of pyridylamino derivatives of the oligosaccharides were separated by high performance liquid chromatography on an ODS-silica column, and 15 oligosaccharides were isolated. The structure of each oligosaccharide fraction was analyzed by two-dimensional sugar mapping, component sugar analysis, high resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance and methylation analysis. It was found that each N-linked oligosaccharide associated with human urinary kallidinogenase contains unsubstituted GalNAc residues at the nonreducing terminal. These 15 oligosaccharides include 5 biantennary, 7 triantennary, and 3 tetraantennary oligosaccharides.