Studies on glycans of glycoproteins are hampered by the lack of standards that reflect the wide diversity in structure typically observed. To this end the authors have exploited a large library of N-glycan standards comprised of a unique collection of 226 N-glycans including oligomannose, hybrid, and complex-type. Theygenerated a method employing porous graphitized carbon (PGC) and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (PGC-LC-MS), which can provide a high degree of resolution of underivatized N-glycan structures. Chromatogram libraries arising from these studies include retention time data, diagnostic fragments, and validated structural assignments, providing a robust platform for both targeted and discovery-based glycomics. THe authors refer to this as an N-glycopedia, the first type of resource in which researchers can compare this collective data to N-glycans under study and overcome the limitations of only having compositional data and predicted structures. The technology is easily expandable to include additional N-glycans as new standards become available.
