Distinct structural changes of the α2,3/α2,6-sialic acid glycosidic linkages on glycoproteins are of importance in cancer biology, inflammatory diseases, and virus tropism. Current glycoproteomic methodologies are, however, not amenable toward high-throughput characterization of sialic acid isomers. To enable such assignments, a mass spectrometry method utilizing synthetic model glycopeptides for the analysis of oxonium ion intensity ratios was developed. This method was successfully applied in large-scale glycoproteomics, thus allowing the site-specific structural characterization of sialic acid isomers.
Keywords: glycopeptides; glycosylation; isomers; mass spectrometry; sialic acids.
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