Analysis of tissue glycoprotein sugar chains by two-dimensional high-performance liquid chromatographic mapping

Excellent separation of 45 pyridylamino derivatives of oligosaccharides were achieved by the two-dimensional combination of reversed-phase and size-fractionation high-performance liquid chromatography. The sugar chains of brain glycoproteins were derivatized into a mixture of pyridylamino-oligosaccharides from lyophilized brain tissue without any purification steps, and they were well separated by the system used. The pattern obtained was reproducible, and inter-individual variation was negligible. This finding demonstrated the possibility that this method could be applied to the detection of differences in the structure of glycoprotein sugar chains in crude preparations.