Fragmentation Rules of Acidic Carbohydrates in Multiple-Stage Mass Spectrometry: Toward Establishment of a Method to Determine Glycosaminoglycan Sequence

Abstract

I focus on the fragmentation rules derived by inspection of the multistage product ion mass spectra of glycosaminoglycan (GAG)-related carbohydrates. To establish a sophisticated sequencing method for GAGs using mass spectrometry, systematic understanding of fragmentation rules is essential. This review proposes an attractive protocol for GAG sequencing based on such knowledge, and shows that multiple-stage mass spectrometry is a powerful and promising technology to decipher highly heterogeneous GAG structures.