Capillary zone electrophoresis with fluorescence detection was used to analyze the products formed by chitinase acting on N-acetylchitooligosaccharide-fluorescent conjugates. Six oligosaccharides of the structure [N-acetylglucosamine(1----4)]n (where n = 1-6) were conjugated to 7-amino-1,3-naphthalene disulfonic acid by reductive amination. Each oligosaccharide-fluorescent conjugate was purified by preparative gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, semi-dry electrotransfer to a positively-charged nylon membrane and recovered by washing the membrane with salt solution. The products formed by treating each oligosaccharide-fluorescent conjugate with chitinase were analyzed by capillary zone electrophoresis. The chitinase treatment hexasaccharide-fluorescent conjugate was also examined kinetically to study the action pattern of this enzyme.