关键词: N-糖基化, 高效液相色谱法, 毛细管电泳法, 质谱

Abstract: Glycosylation is one of the most common forms of post-translational modifications in eukaryotic proteins. As the main glycosylation type of glycoproteins, N-glycosylation plays an important role in many life activities. It has positive practical significance for qualitative and quantitative research of N-glycans. The conventional analysis strategy of N-glycosylation is to separate the N-glycans from the peptide chain by enzymatic digestion. But it is difficult to separate and analyze the N-glycans by classical reversed-phase chromatography and ultraviolet detection, because of the N-glycans is a polyhydroxyaldehyde compound. In response to this situation, scientists mostly use pre-column derivatization to make the sugar chains with ultraviolet or fluorescent groups, so as to increase the sensitivity of their detection. In this paper, the methods of separation and analysis for dissociative N-glycans were summarized in recent years. Among them, CE, HPLC and MS have great advantages in the separation and analysis of N-glycans, which are of great significance for the qualitative, quantitative and structural characterization of N-glycans in glycoproteins. Meanwhile, stable and reliable methods for N-glycans release and enrichment should be further developed, combined with modern efficient analytical methods and targeted measures for N-glycans analysis, which was expected to provide a basis for the analysis of N-glycosylation with high flux and accuracy.

Key words: N-glycans, high performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, mass spectrometry