Background: Aberrant sialylation is closely associated with the tumorigenesis, progression, and metastasis, and may be of importance for disease diagnosis. However, the analysis of altered expression of sialylated glycans (SGs) in blood is particularly challenging due to the low content and poor ionization efficiency of sialylated glycans in mass spectrometry.
Methods: An analytical strategy based on enrichment of SGs, liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometric detection, and automatic glycan annotation was developed to profile the sialylated N-glycome in serum.