Integrated mass spectrometric strategy for characterizing the glycans from glycosphingolipids and glycoproteins: direct identification of sialyl Le(x) in mice.

The current interest in applying systems biology approaches to studying an organism's form or function promises to reveal further insights into the role of glycosylation in cells and whole organisms. This has prompted the development of a rapid, sensitive method of profiling the glycan component of both glycosphingolipids and glycoproteins from a single sample. Here we report a new mass spectrometric screening strategy for characterizing glycosphingolipid-derived oligosaccharides, which can be integrated into an existing highly sensitive glycoprotein glycomics strategy.

The synthesis of internal standards for the quantitative determination of sphingolipids by tandem mass spectrometry.

Novel internal standards have been synthesised for the quantitative determination by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) of the sphingolipids that accumulate in lysosomal storage diseases. The [d4]C16- and [d47]C24-isoforms of galactosylceramide (CMH), lactosylceramide (CDH), globotriaosylceramide (CTH), cerebroside sulphate, sphingomyelin and G(M1)-, G(M2)- and G(M3)-gangliosides were synthesised by the reaction of their lyso-forms with the acid chlorides of hexadecanoic 5,5,6,6-d4 acid ([d4]-palmitic acid) and tetracosanoic-d47 acid ([d47]-lignoceric acid), respectively. The acid chlorides were formed using oxalyl chloride.