Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2009 Oct;13(4):421-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2009.07.022. Epub 2009 Aug 21.

Determination of glycosylation sites and site-specific heterogeneity in glycoproteins

Hyun Joo An  1 , John W Froehlich, Carlito B Lebrilla
Affiliations
Review

Determination of glycosylation sites and site-specific heterogeneity in glycoproteins

Hyun Joo An et al. Curr Opin Chem Biol. 2009 Oct.

Abstract

Glycosylation is one of the most common post-translational modifications (PTMs) of proteins. At least 50% of human proteins are glycosylated with some estimates being as high as 70%. Glycoprotein analysis requires determining both the sites of glycosylation as well as the glycan structures associated with each site. Recent advances have led to the development of new analytical methods that employ mass spectrometry extensively making it possible to obtain the glycosylation site and the site microheterogeneity. These tools will be important for the eventual development of glycoproteomics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The standard approaches to determine site-specific glycosylation employing the specific enzymatic proteolysis. Depending on the nature of the samples used, some of the steps were not always needed (marked with an asterisk (*)). The order of procedures had some variability as well.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The experimental strategy for the determination of glycosylation sites and site-specific heterogeneity using non-specific proteolysis. Glycan information (on the right) is often used to eliminate false positive assignment of specific glycopeptides.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dennis JW, Granovsky M, Warren CE. Protein glycosylation in development and disease. Bioessays. 1999;21:412–421. - PubMed
    1. Park Y, Lebrilla CB. Application of Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry to oligosaccharides. Mass Spectrom Rev. 2005;24:232–264. - PubMed
    1. Harvey DJ. Proteomic analysis of glycosylation: structural determination of N- and O-linked glycans by mass spectrometry. Expert Review of Proteomics. 2005;2:87–101. A comprehensive review of the methods for the structural determination of glycans, mainly based on mass spectrometry. - PubMed
    1. Cancilla MT, Penn SG, Carroll JA, Lebrilla CB. Coordination of alkali metals to oligosaccharides dictates fragmentation behavior in matrix assisted laser desorption ionization Fourier transform mass spectrometry. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 1996;118:6736–6745.
    1. Harvey DJ. Analysis of Carbohydrates and Glycoconjugates by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry: An Update for 2003-2004. Mass Spectrometry Reviews. 2009;28:273–361. A comprehensive review on the application of MALDI-MS to analysis of glycans and glycojugates. This review is the third update of the original review. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types