Software for high throughput N-glycan structure determination by MS/MS (tandem mass spectrometry)

PR Log (Press Release) – Jul 04, 2009 – BioPharmaSoft announces the release of Glyquest for high throughput primary N-glycan structure determinations based on tandem mass spectra (MS/MS) of glycopeptides.

Protein glycosylation is important (Cell, 126, 855-867, 2006; Nat. Rev. Cancer., 5, 526-542, 2005), yet asparagine-linked glycan (N-glycan) structure characterization at high throughput is extremely challenging due to their structure complexity and lack of databases (Proteomics, 8, 8-20, 2008).

Glyquest contains a large N-glycan structure database that can be searched by a built-in database search engine. The database can be easily expanded to include all possible combinations of all known branch structures. It can also be customized to include N-glycan structures with any user modified monosaccharide. Glyquest can quickly search thousands of tandem (MS/MS) mass spectra of glycopeptides against the database, find glycopeptide spectra, assign N-glycan structures to the spectra and annotate the MS/MS fragment peaks graphically. By using ESI (electrospray ionization) CID (collision induced dissociation) mass spectrometric data of tryptic digests of glycoproteins and nanoflow reverse phase C18 columns, the patent pending technology considerably simplifies the work flow and enables most proteomics labs to carry out high throughput glycomics research.

The work has been published on line by JASMS and will be published in print in the journal (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasms.2009.05.012   Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry). For more information, visit www.BioPharmaSoft.com