Analysis of high-mannose N-glycans by travelling-wave ion mobility and negative ion fragmentation (CAT#: STEM-ST-0101-LJX)

Introduction

The isomeric structure of high-mannose N-glycans can significantly impact biological recognition events. Here, the utility of travelling-wave ion mobility mass spectrometry for isomer separation of high-mannose N-glycans is investigated. Negative ion fragmentation using collision-induced dissociation gave more informative spectra than positive ion spectra with mass-different fragment ions characterizing many of the isomers. Isomer separation by ion mobility in both ionization modes was generally limited, with the arrival time distributions (ATD) often showing little sign of isomers. However, isomers could be partially resolved by plotting extracted fragment ATDs of the diagnostic fragment ions from the negative ion spectra, and the fragmentation spectra of the isomers could be extracted by using ions from limited areas of the ATD peak.