Recent Advances in the Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Glycoproteins: Capillary and Microfluidic Workflows

摘要

Recent developments in bioanalytical instrumentation, mass spectrometry (MS) detection and computational data analysis approaches have provided researchers with capabilities for interrogating the complex cellular glycoproteome, to help gain a better insight into the cellular and physiological processes that are associated with a disease, and to facilitate the efforts centered on identifying disease-specific biomarkers. This review describes the progress achieved in the characterization of protein glycosylation by using advanced capillary and microfluidic-MS technologies. The major steps involved in large-scale glycoproteomic analysis approaches are discussed, with special emphasis given to workflows that have evolved around complex MS detection functions. In addition, quantitative analysis strategies are assessed, and the bioinformatics aspects of glycoproteomic data processing are summarized. The developments in commercial and custom fabricated microfluidic front-end platforms to ESI- and MALDI-MS instrumentation, for addressing major challenges in carbohydrate analysis such as sensitivity, throughput and ability to perform structural characterization, are further evaluated and illustrated with relevant examples.