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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Glycomics-Guided Glycoproteomics Facilitates Comprehensive Profiling of the Glycoproteome in Complex Tumor Microenvironments
Published on: February 7, 2025
Glycoproteomics based on tandem mass spectrometry of glycopeptides
Manfred Wuhrer1, M Isabel Catalina, André M Deelder
1Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Unit, Department of Parasitology, Leiden University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands. m.wuhrer@lumc.nl
Abstract:
Next to the identification of proteins and the determination of their expression levels, the analysis of post-translational modifications (PTM) is becoming an increasingly important aspect in proteomics. Here, we review mass spectrometric (MS) techniques for the study of protein glycosylation at the glycopeptide level. Enrichment and separation techniques for glycoproteins and glycopeptides from complex (glyco-)protein mixtures and digests are summarized. Various tandem MS (MS/MS) techniques for the analysis of glycopeptides are described and compared with respect to the information they provide on peptide sequence, glycan attachment site and glycan structure. Approaches using electrospray ionization and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) of glycopeptides are presented and the following fragmentation techniques in glycopeptide analysis are compared: collision-induced fragmentation on different types of instruments, metastable fragmentation after MALDI ionization, infrared multi-photon dissociation, electron-capture dissociation and electron-transfer dissociation. This review discusses the potential and limitations of tandem mass spectrometry of glycopeptides as a tool in structural glycoproteomics.
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