Despite the importance of carbohydrates in cellular structure, intercellular communication, and other biological processes, characterization of complex mixtures of carbohydrates remains challenging. In particular, isomeric carbohydrates can have very different biological functions and can be difficult to distinguish. Ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) has the potential to be an effective technique for solving this problem. Although underivatized isomeric monosaccharides and disaccharides are typically indistinguishable by IM-MS, shift reagents can amplify their collision cross section (CCS) differences, facilitating characterization. Herein, mono- and disaccharide standards covalently derivatized with 3-carboxy-5-nitrophenylboronic acid were studied by cyclic IM-MS (cIM-MS). A series of four monosaccharide standards (fructose, galactose, glucose, and mannose) and eight disaccharide standards (cellobiose, isomaltose, lactose, lactulose, maltose, melibiose, sucrose, and trehalose) were included in this study. Results indicated that the resolution for each pair of disaccharides increased significantly after two to three cIM passes when compared to those in traveling wave IM-MS. cIM combined with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) could distinguish each of the mono- and disaccharide isomers studied. cIM-MS/MS also provided increased structural information for the covalent derivatives in this study compared to IM-MS/MS. Tandem IM techniques analogous to MS/MS were used to further characterize these isomers.

Resolution of covalently derivatized carbohydrate isomers with cyclic ion mobility-tandem mass spectrometry

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.