There is considerable potential for the use of ion mobility mass spectrometry in structural glycobiology due in large part to the gas-phase separation attributes not typically observed by orthogonal methods. Here, we evaluate the capability of traveling wave ion mobility combined with negative ion collision-induced dissociation to provide structural information on N-linked glycans containing multiple fucose residues forming the Lewis^x and Lewis^y epitopes. These epitopes are involved in processes such as cell-cell recognition and are important as cancer biomarkers. Specific information that could be obtained from the intact N-glycans by negative ion CID included the general topology of the glycan such as the presence or absence of a bisecting GlcNAc residue and the branching pattern of the triantennary glycans. Information on the location of the fucose residues was also readily obtainable from ions specific to each antenna. Some isobaric fragment ions produced prior to ion mobility could subsequently be separated and, in some cases, provided additional valuable structural information that was missing from the CID spectra alone.

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离子迁移质谱法在结构糖生物学中的应用潜力巨大，这在很大程度上是由于气相分离属性通常无法通过正交方法观察到。在这里，我们评估行波离子迁移率与负离子碰撞诱导的解离相结合的能力，以提供有关包含多个岩藻糖残基的N-连接聚糖的结构信息，这些残基形成Lewis ^x和Lewis ^y表位。这些表位参与诸如细胞-细胞识别的过程，并且作为癌症生物标志物很重要。可以从完整的N中获得的特定信息通过负离子CID合成的β-聚糖包括聚糖的一般拓扑结构，例如是否存在二等分的GlcNAc残基以及三触角聚糖的分支模式。从每个天线特有的离子也可以很容易地获得关于岩藻糖残基位置的信息。随后可以分离出在离子迁移之前产生的一些同量异位碎片离子，并且在某些情况下，可以提供仅从CID光谱中就无法获得的其他有价值的结构信息。

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